Affirmative action: ‘Commission needed to protect rights of disabled’

Govt urged to ratify UN conventions on rights of disabled people.

FAISALABAD: “The government must introduce comprehensive legislation covering the needs and problems of disability community in Pakistan,” said Association of Women for Awareness and Motivation (AWAM) Director Nazia Sardar on Wednesday.

She said people with disabilities made up 15 per cent of the country’s population.

She said the government must set up an independent national commission to implement the UN convention on rights of people with disabilities.

She was addressing a conference entitled State of Disability Rights in Pakistan arranged to mark the International Day of People with Disabilities here on Wednesday.



The conference was organised by Community-Based Inclusive Development (CBID) Network in collaboration with the Beacon Foundation, Society for Disabled Persons for Rights and Development (SDPRD), Pakistan Gender Coalition (PGC) and the AWAM.

Sardar said people should avoid using derogatory words for people with disabilities and use neutral terms like “visually impaired,” “hearing impaired” etc.

Human rights advocate Shazia George said, “Pakistan has ineffective laws and policies which do not cater to the needs and problems of the disabled. The government conduct a census and introduce new laws protecting the disabled community.”

She said the government must revise existing policies and legislation and upgrade them to conform with international disability standards.

Beacon Foundation Director Rana Yasir Nadeem said the government should enhance quota in education and employment for people with disabilities in accordance with their population. He said all public and private institutions should strictly enforce the quota and recruit eligible people with disabilities on reserved seats.

“The government must build a favourable environment for ensuring easy access of people with disabilities to public transportation, buildings and places based on universally accepted disability standards and for the removal of barriers that prevent a person with disability from participating in an activity or receiving services on an equal basis with others,” he said. He urged the government to strengthen and enable disabled people.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 4^th, 2014.