PESHAWAR: Speakers at a seminar have urged the government to implement the laws meant for the betterment of handicapped people so that they could work like other people in the society.

The event was held at Peshawar Press Club on Saturday under the aegis of Special Persons Development Association, and attended by people with different physical disabilities. The speakers included special education schoolteacher Ms Naheed Tara, disability and accessibility expert Ihsanullah Daudzai, Malik Ma’azullah, Javaid Khan and others.

Ms Naheed talked about the challenges being faced by women with disabilities, while other speakers highlighted the rights of the disabled. They said that special people had been facing problems because successive governments did not show any interest in implementing the laws protecting their rights.

About the problems being faced by special persons in routine movement, they said that the normal people were not paying them any attention at least to facilitate them in the transport and give them access to high-rise buildings.

The government, they said, should make it mandatory for the transporters to pick the disabled, provide them a proper seat and drop them with care so that they could go about their routine work instead of becoming burden on the society. They said that the government departments should not allow construction of buildings unless the owners designed the structures keeping in view the needs of the disabled.

“In the prevailing situation we cannot access washrooms and offices of different departments due to stairs and thus become burden on others,” said a special person.

They demanded of the government to ensure implementation of the job quota for the disabled.

Published in Dawn, November 23rd, 2014