On the margins: ‘Benefits for the disabled do not reach all’

Government committed to empowering the disabled, lawmakers say

FAISALABAD: “The government has been devoting great attention to mainstreaming the physically challenged,” lawmaker Farzana Butt said on Wednesday.

She made the remarks while speaking at a consultative meeting organised by the Association of Women for Awareness and Motivation (AWAM) in collaboration with the Milestone Society of Disabled People (MSDP) and Community Based Inclusive Development (CBID) Network. Butt said this made it binding on civil society organisations to recommend measures needed to be taken to strengthen mechanisms facilitating their empowerment.

Nasreen Nawaz, another lawmaker, said the government had taken a bevy of initiatives to empower the physically challenged. She said there was a need to raise public awareness regarding the various services offered by the government for such individuals. Nawaz said this was needed to raise the number of people being facilitated by such services and expedite efforts to assimilate them.

Punjab Commission on the Status of Women (PCSW) Member Shazia George said scores of disabled women were unable to obtain CNIC cards as they tended not to possess disability registration certificates. She said this was due to the tedious process of obtaining the certificate. George said this made it mandatory for the process to be revamped by the introduction of one-window operations across the tehsil-level.

Awam programme director Naseem Anthony said lack of conducive environments had left the physically challenged at the mercy of social, economic, political and physical challenges. “The physically challenged are compelled to live on the margins of the society. Authorities must ensure that such individuals have access to opportunities and services announced by the government,” she said.

Centre for Social Justice executive director Peter Jacob said the government must pay more attention to improving service delivery on this account. He said it was imperative to enshrine a comprehensive system for the physically challenged. Jacob said such a mechanism had to take into account their needs to eventually foster social change.

Highly enthusiastic and Educative for Rights and Awareness (HEERA) president Umer Pervez said the government must introduce vocational training courses for the physically challenged to further entrepreneurship among their ranks. He said this would ensure that they were financially emancipated. Pervez said the government ought to formulate long-term policies to integrate the physically challenged and empower them.

MSDP executive director Shafiqueur Rahman said while the society appreciated the steps taken by the government for the welfare of the physically challenged, it had not done much to make such services and programmes accessible to those they had been conceived for.

Published in The Express Tribune, February 4^th,  2016.