Then I thought about the people with disability in my own country. I have seen them trying to cross the road on wheelchairs. I have seen visually impaired people struggling to find the way, tapping the ground as they walk. But they are seldom helped on the streets. People ignore them and walk on.Very few help people with disability here. Besides, our public transportation, hospitals, schools and even toilets are not disabled-friendly. So they are left at the mercy of 'normal' people for everything. I imagine the pain of having to suffer just because I have lost an organ or my eyesight. This must be a terrible experience. But there are about a billion such people in the world. Not everyone would be as lucky as this person in New York.
The disables have poorer health, lower education achievements, fewer economic opportunities and higher rates of poverty than the able-bodied. This is largely due to lack of services available to them and many obstacles they face in their everyday lives. According to World Report on Disability, jointly released by World Health Organization and the World Bank, 15 percent of world population lives with disabilities. Eighty percent of them live in developing countries, according to the UNDP. The World Bank estimates that 20 percent of the world's poorest people have some kind of disability, and tend to be regarded in their own communities as the most disadvantaged. Women and girls with disabilities are vulnerable to abuse.
A small 2004 survey in Orissa, India, found that almost all women and girls with disabilities were beaten at home, 25 percent women with intellectual disabilities had been raped and six percent women with disabilities had been forcibly sterilized. According to UNESCO, 90 percent children with disabilities in developing countries do not attend school. Unemployment among those with disabilities is as high as 80 percent in some countries. In Nepal, National Census 2011 puts the number of disabled at 1.9 percent—which is about half a million—of country's population. The World Health Organization (WHO) puts the figure at over 10 percent. These people who need help are often shunned, and left to fend for themselves in our society.
Persons with disability suffer everywhere, not because there are no laws to protect their rights (there are plenty) but because we lack sense of humanism to be with them when they need us the most. There is UN's World Program of Action for Persons with Disabilities (1982) and the Standard Rules on the Equalization of Opportunities for Persons with Disabilities (1994). Nepal also enacted Disabled Persons Protection and Welfare Act (DPWA) in 1982. UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) 2006 has been hailed as a watershed for the people with disability. Nepal also ratified CRPD in 2010. None of these allow inhuman treatment of persons with disability. But such treatment continues.
People with disability need love and care because they cannot see or hear or walk or speak properly. But they are considered good-for-nothing. So reports of tethering them to a tree or imprisoning them within the house are common. Unless we show some humanity, they will forever be denied their rights to be treated with dignity and respect.
There should be equal opportunities for people with disability. It is important to provide them guidance and counseling. Some companies in the world have started helping such people by reserving quotas. Such companies should be supported. The government should provide facilities to help them live with ease. It should adopt disabled-friendly standards in designing public transportation and roadways.
There are a few schools for the deaf in Nepal but use of Braille books for visually impaired is uncommon. Various organizations working for the disabled are pressing for strong legislation for the disabled. But laws alone cannot change attitudes. We need to raise national consciousness. We can begin by helping the visually impaired cross the street, or even help them reach their destination if possible.
Every time I see persons with disabilities struggling to walk, or get on bus here in Kathmandu, I think about that man in New York. The system there is built in a way that he does not feel any different from 'normal' people. When will the same happen in Nepal?
The author is an hotelier with interest in peace and humanism
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