Saddia Mazhar
ISLAMABAD: when I realized that my body within the passing days are going to weaker, my legs are unable to hold my weight, it shocked me and my family but my brain was working normally so spending time in regret, I utilize my healthy part and completed my masters in sociology as my dream was to be a politician”, Raja Muhammad Owais told.
Based in Karachi, Owais is not only a good blog writer, a poet and with his physical disability, completed his degree on his own but now waiting for a good job.
Unfortunately in Pakistan, lack of special educational institutions and proper training centers, special children and their parents faces multiple challenges and hardships throughout their lives. A disable person is unable to get all the facilities which Pakistani law provides until he has a certificate proof of disability. The process of registering someone as a person living with disability is a long one. The individual is required to come to the city’s public hospital, present relevant documents proving residence and disability, appear before an assessment board, get a disability certificate and furnish that to get a special identity card on this base.
It is alarming to see the statistics which show that Only four percent of children with special needs have access to schools in Pakistan,” University of Management and Technology (UMT) Department of Education Chairman Sajid Masood told during interview. Mr. Masood said 66 percent of disabled people in Pakistan lived in rural areas, and 34 per cent in urban areas and 58 percent of people with disabilities are male.
Statistic about Pakistan on Wikipedia shows that there are only 531 special schools in Pakistan and about 200 nongovernmental organizations and disabled people’s organizations offering education to people with disabilities.
“It is time for a uniform education system with equal opportunities for everyone, we must provide a conducive and compatible environment to our special children to make them a part of the mainstream ending their social isolation”, said Mrs. Zainab, a mother of a special kid based in Islamabad.
Mr. Ali Naqvi, Executive Director of Global Friends, a nonprofit organization working on the education of special children in Pakistan told this scribe that after the 18th amendment the topic of special education devolved to provinces completely to deal with it independently.
“Inclusive education is important but first we need to understand the disabilities. It is a challenge to bring 0.7 million people with disabilities to the schools,” Naqvi said.
Mr. Naqvi shared his experiences and believes that one of the biggest problems faced by children with disabilities is mobility. He urged government to make it mandatory for school campuses to have facilities for disabled students.
It is worth mentioning here that some welfare organizations have setup their centers for proper education and brought up of the special children both male and female but their services are negligible in comparison to the pathetic conditions of special children in different corners of the country. Particularly in rural areas, the parents have no access to such centers or in other words have no knowledge of existence of welfare centers for their kids.
Mr. Majeed Amjad,Head of special education department , Allama Iqbal Open University told that Around 3.3 million individuals in Pakistan have minor or real inabilities; however out of aggregate 188 public-private area Universities in the Country, just 16 of them are giving extraordinary offices to incapacitated understudies at a more elevated amount of training.
While just two Universities including Allama Iqbal Open University (AIOU) and Quaid-I-Azam University (QAU) Islamabad are giving the office of electronic courses to handicapped understudies.
“Disability” is not just a Pakistani phenomenon, an estimated 1billion people, or 15 percent of the world’s population, are living with disabilities. In Pakistan, estimates of the number of persons living with disabilities vary between 3.3m and 27m, depending on whether they are based on government statistics (the recent census which measured the prevalence rates is taken in 2017) or whether they come from other agencies according to international labor organization.
At least seven million people with disabilities (PWD) are forced to stay home as they do not have access to wheelchairs in Pakistan, Shafiqur Rehman, president of Milestone — a movement for PWDs, said in an interview.
“At least 20 million people in Pakistan have disabilities, making that 10 percent of the country’s population,” said Rehman.
The population of disabled persons across the country has been registered to be less than 0.48 per cent of the total population as per the recently concluded ‘6th Population and Housing Census 2017.Department of statistic bureau shows the figures of disable person according to the kind of disabilities at provincial level.
Dr. Zohaib Hassan, medical officer posted at a health facility in Islamabad referred World Health Organization’s (WHO) definition of disability which is;
“A disability is an umbrella term, covering impairments, activity limitations, and participation restrictions. Impairment is a problem in body function or structure; an activity limitation is a difficulty encountered by an individual in executing a task or action; while a participation restriction is a problem experienced by an individual in involvement in life situations.”
He added that disability is not just a health problem, it is a complex phenomenon, reflecting the interaction between features of a person’s body and features of the society in which he or she lives.
“Overcoming the difficulties faced by people with disabilities requires interventions to remove environmental and social barriers”, Dr. Zohaib further added.
A report of Potohar Mental Health institution, “With a total cost of Rs99.98 million, the Punjab government has approved an ADP scheme namely ‘Disabled Persons Management Information System’ for online registration and assessment of persons with disabilities by offering them opportunity for online submission of their applications and tracking the progress made on their application and providing information like assessment boards, meetings and delivering registration certificate at their doorstep.”
Another major issue must address is some new buildings in Pakistan are accessible to disabled people but most are not disabled-friendly and lack proper accommodations. Students and youth with disabilities are hit hardest as they are unable to continue education which leaves them further immobilized. “The educational institutions must have accessible buildings and elevators so that at least our young generation is not left behind,” said Zulqarnain Asghar, President of Potohar Mental Health Association.
Zahid Qureshi , the law minister of KP told that the provincial information department has been advised not to float any advertisement of vacant posts of the department unless the provision of 2 percent quota for disabled has not been reserved, adding that all the heads of administrative departments has been advised to fulfill the requirement under 2 percent reserved quota.
Dr. Samina Feroz, a female medical officer underlined “Malnutrition” a big issue not only for the special children but also for other children in Pakistan.
“I strongly believe that their abilities are stronger than their disabilities,” she added.
In an exclusive interview Dr. Hina Noor, a Senior Lecturer of Special Education Department Allama Iqbal Open University Islamabad said “In our region, having a child with disability is often perceived negatively and such children are stigmatized. Often superstitious beliefs are associated with such individuals and these are considered as an outcome of divine punishment because of sins committed by the parents during their life time”.
“Parents have been reported to have feelings of shame, embarrassment and guilt, consequently while attempting to keep the matter private parents fail to seek assistance to treat the children”, Hina Noor added.
Mr. Ali Naqvi, ED Global Friends told that in Pakistan, policy approaches to disability have largely been focused on rehabilitation, welfare handouts and related charity.
“This has been changing since the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disability (CRPD), which became operational in 2008”, he said
He further said that CRPD offers a blueprint for a rights-based approach to mainstreaming persons with disabilities.
“In Pakistan being a disabled person comes with full of challenges, hardships and unending miseries throughout the life”, said a blind 43 years Raffique Ahmed.
“There were no facilities, no proper education system for the person like me who lost his eyesight in childhood, I wish if physically challenged persons could be given equal growing opportunities in Pakistan”, he added.
Abia Aklem, a physically disable young girl expresses her feelings that physical disability is not a sin or bad side of that person but unfortunately in our society we call those persons as “BECHARAY” (miserable in English) or do not help them to be the part of mainstream life but now need to change our attitude.
An official of Umeed-e-Noor, a Center of Excellence for special children, established in 1996 told that in the twin cities; Islamabad and Rawalpindi alone, there are about 200,000 children with special needs and so far 1,200 children have benefited from the quality therapy and education in their center
Ahsan Ali Mangi, Secretary, Department of Empowerment of Persons with Disabilities Sindh. Told that awareness about special needs for persons for disabilities was acknowledged by the Government of Pakistan in early 1980s, resulting in legislation by the federal government for training, welfare and employment of persons with disabilities, a special education department was also created at the federal level with the aim to create institutions and training centers to cater to the educational and skills needs of PWD. Government of Pakistan also signed and ratified UN convention on the rights of the persons with disabilities in 2011, however general awareness of the issue in the society and positive steps to ensure rights and access to PWDs remained less then desired.
Despite efforts of national and international organizations for the inclusion of special children in all walks of life there is much more needed. There is a dire need of a developed education system for special children as like other children, children with disabilities also require that they must be provided with all basic rights and facilities for living a peaceful productive life.
These basic rights include the right to quality education opportunities for all people including those with disabilities.
