Disabled
demand change in mindsets, policy
Thursday December 02, 2010 05:33:56 PM ,
Azera Rahman, IANS
|
New Delhi:
Widespread prejudice, lack of job opportunities and official
apathy - the differently-abled in the country have to battle more
than just their physical disabilities in their struggle to lead
respectable lives.
India is home to 60 million disabled people. Of them, 48 percent
are visually impaired, 28 percent are movement impaired, 14
percent are mentally disabled and 10 percent have hearing and
speech disabilities. These are the findings of 'People with
Disabilities in India: From Commitments to Outcomes,' a report
prepared by the World Bank in collaboration with the ministry of
social justice and empowerment.
However, NGOs say that the numbers will be much more once the 2011
census is completed.
"There needs to be an attitudinal change in the community. Just
like you have physical ramps which help the physically disabled to
go to an escalated height, we have to do a mental ramping for
people to integrate the disabled population with the mainstream
society," said Poonam Natarjan, chairperson of the National Trust,
a statutory body under the ministry of social justice and
empowerment.
The body led a pan-India campaign "Badhte Kadam" last month, aimed
at encouraging people to answer the questions on disability
included in the census.
But activists say the people's discriminatory mindset may come in
the way of putting an exact number to India's disabled population.
"People generally don't mind telling you that their neighbour has
a disabled member in the family, but will shy away to admit that
one of their own members is differently abled. There is a kind of
shame in admitting that. Even doctors try to 'treat' disabled
people, making them feel like they are suffering from some
disease," she added.
Awareness too is important to ensure that the disabled can benefit
from the various government schemes. According to NGO estimates,
almost 95 percent of the country's disabled population has no
access to education, employment and healthcare.
Javed Abidi, founder of the Disability Rights Group and chairman
of the National Centre for Promotion of Employment of Disabled
Population (NCPEDP), said that it's not just the society, but even
the government discriminates against the disabled.
"What else would you say about most of the government buildings
which are not disabled friendly? And this despite the Disability
Law, 1995 saying that all public buildings should be disabled
friendly. Even reservation for the community in the government and
private sector is dismally low," Abidi, who uses a wheelchair,
told IANS.
According to Abidi, while the law says that there should be three
percent reservation for disabled people in government jobs, the
public sector employs just 0.5 percent disabled people. The
numbers for the private sector and multinational companies are 0.2
and 0.05 percent respectively - an overall 0.4 percent employment
rate.
Natarajan said that "much more needs to be done" at the policy
level. Abidi said he was dismayed at the way the working draft of
the new disability law, which will replace the "archaic" one, has
been framed.
"We approached the social justice and empowerment ministry for a
new law in October 2009 and the minister finally conceded to it in
April this year and set up a 30-member committee to work on the
draft. At the onset itself we had reservations against the
committee because it had only three members from the disabled
community, so there was hardly any representation," Abidi said.
According to Abidi, the committee extended their deadline for the
draft submission twice and have finally sought time until Dec 31
this year. Even then, the work done is "shoddy".
"There are four laws which cover all persons with disabilities -
the Disability Law of 1995, the National Trust Act, the
Rehabilitation Council of India (RCI) Act and the Mental Health
Act. The new law, as proposed by the committee, will put together
a comprehensive legislation which will cover all the laws," he
said.
"However, the draft says that the National Trust Act and the RCI
Act couldn't be inducted because of "lack of time and space". How
much more time do they need? And as far as space is concerned,
there is no specified limitation for that. I wish they had
included more of us in drafting the law," Abidi added.
The community now is pressing for a separate ministry on
disability since they feel that their issues don't get much
importance in the current setup.
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