Rights of the disabled: AWAM urges govt to review policies
The Association of Women for Awareness and Motivation (AWAM) has urged the government to review its existing strategies and policies regarding the rights of the disabled.
Addressing a public dialogue on Tuesday, AWAM Executive Secretary Naseem Anthony stressed the need for involving key stakeholders in upholding the rights of people with disabilities.
The seminar titled Persons with Disabilities: Legislative Cover and Inclusion highlighted the grey areas in different policies, legislation and practices.
Anthony said the government must make its polices in a way that they conformed with international disability standards and instruments.
“The government must erect comprehensive, unequivocal and detailed legislation in the light of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (UNCRPD),” he said.
AWAM Coordinator Shazia George said the government must establish a separate ministry dedicated to the disabled. She said it also needed to set up an autonomous national commission or an institution to implement and monitor the UNCRPD.
MPAs Anjum Safdar and Razia Joseph were also present. They informed the participants that the Punjab government had amended the Disabled Persons (employment and rehabilitation) Ordinance, 1981, in the first quarter of 2012, and would take more initiatives for the empowerment of the disabled.
Akhter Aziz and Dr Zahida Naz, representatives of the Labour and Social Welfare Departments, suggested that the Health Department must be taken on board to remove the hurdles faced by the disabled especially during registration process. They also suggested that medical superintendents of the DHQ hospitals must fix a specific day to examine patients with vocally, hearing and visual impairments.
Romail Anthony, administrator at Tamir Welfare Organisation, said the women doctors must be appointed to examine women patients.
They said the Social Welfare department must issue same disability registration certificates in every district do that they could be valid and accepted in all parts of the country.
They also suggested setting up of a one-window cell for the registration of disabled people.
PHD Foundation Director Suneel Malik; Farooq Butt, DDO at the Community Development Department; Muhammad Tahir, the Social Welfare Department DDO; and Dr Sajid Ali, the Society of Disabled People for Rights and Development executive director, were also present.
Published in The Express Tribune, October 25th, 2012.
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