Advocate says Pakistan must not make empty promises to its disability community

From Dr. Tariq Rahman at Dawn.com:

A few days ago, some brave people from the blind community of Pakistan demanded ATM cards. With instructions available in voice and braille this demand should have been met a long time back.

Some months earlier, a student seeking admission to a medical college was denied this on the grounds that his wheelchair could not move around. In this case, however, the public wrote letters in the press and the college had to admit him, but will the blind be issued ATM cards?

There are famous handicapped people in history. Dr Taha Hussain of Egypt, a well-known scholar, was blind. Helen Keller is even better known. But while the presence of such people in the academia and other fields is now acceptable even in Pakistan, few have heard of a blind doctor or engineer. One should read the New York Times of Nov 25, 2003 which describes the case of Jeffrey Lawler who at that time was a blind medical student in the US. A machine read out the patient’s blood pressure to him while a nurse informed him of the patient’s temperature.

Doctors like him perform duties other than surgery and they have assistance. An outstanding example is Dr Stanley Wainapel at the Boston University School of Medicine. He is a physician and his patients show faith in him. Of course he and others like him would not be able to do everything required of a medical practitioner. But hospitals have found that there are so many jobs and so many things to be done that such people can be accommodated. The point to focus on is not so much performance as recognition of a fellow human being’s right to live a normal life.

The medieval ages generally denied the handicapped this right. The modern age has nevertheless gone on to recognise that being handicapped is a challenge and it is society which must change its attitudes to make life better and fulfilling for such people.

Thus ski resorts are offering guides for blind skiers, and Olympics for the handicapped known as the Paralympics are held regularly. In 2004, a 17-year-old girl won the wheelchair race in the event held in South Africa.

In May 2007, two blind American sailors, Scott Duncan and Pamela Habek, circumnavigated the globe. A yachtsman Geoff Hilton-Barber single-handedly navigated the Indian Ocean from Durban to Fremantle, Australia. And, most incredibly of all, his brother, a blind pilot called Miles Hilton-Barber, actually landed his aircraft in Sydney in April 2007 after flying 21,000 kilometres from London.

It is only recently that laws prohibiting discrimination against the handicapped have been passed in many countries. Luckily, Pakistan has one in the form of the Disabled Persons (Employment and Rehabilitation) Ordinance 1981 that states among other things that ‘not less than one per cent of the total number of persons employed by an establishment at any time shall be disabled.’

However, as usual, there are strings attached — one has to get registered as a handicapped person with a certain bureaucratic authority which is inaccessible to most people. Even if it is accessible, there are long hours in queues, much form-filling, red tape and official haughtiness.

Even so we must be thankful for small mercies because even this ordinance would not have seen the light of day had Gen Ziaul Haq not had a handicapped daughter. The fact that he did made him sensitive towards the handicapped and he made improvements in the law and established institutions to help them.

We now have Saima Masood, a handicapped person, who obtained a distinction in the CSS examination. Visually challenged Amjad Sohail has built a software house. I know many people who run NGOs, such as Zahid Abdullah, and students some of whom are writing their Ph.D thesis.

In Britain there is the Disability Discrimination Act 1995 that introduced rights for the disabled under which an employer is bound to provide facilities and not discriminate between the disabled and other applicants for a job unless the nature of the latter is not suitable for the handicapped. Nevertheless, even in developed countries the handicapped are often in a disadvantaged position because the law is not sincerely implemented and it is difficult for them to acquire the skills needed for a particular job.

Thus a survey of 14 European countries found that out of the disabled population of Europe only six per cent men and 10 per cent women had a university education while 13 per cent were employed. Our figures are worse because the public sees disability as a curse and cannot understand it.

For instance, children with reading disabilities are beaten and berated. The fact that they may have dyslexia is not recognised by teachers and parents. A Bollywood movie called Taarey zameen par sensitised the public to this particular disorder. But we need many more such movies and talk shows to sensitise our people to the overall issue.

However, laws are only good if they are implemented and if society reacts positively to them. Last year, an Indian minister P. Chidambaram promised to employ 100,000 disabled persons while apologising that no progress had been made on a similar scheme the previous year. Our ministers are cleverer. They do not make such promises to begin with.

When will it all stop? Or will we always deny so many members of our society the right to live a decent life?