‘No segregated schooling for people with disabilities’

Government has done little to help the disabled in Pakistan.

LAHORE: The government is spending a lot of money just to isolate us, keeping us in separate schools, Shafiqueur Rehman, a disabled person, said on Friday. He, along with a group of students with disabilities, staged a protest in front of the Punjab Assembly against “being used as show pieces at seminars and talk shows, instead of being provided with real relief”.

Farrukh Mahmoud, another disabled person, said that by setting up separate institutes, the government was harming rather than helping their cause. These institutes, he said, denied them a chance to interact with normal people. Instead, he said, the government should upgrade regular schools and add facilities to accommodate the disabled people. He said that the disabled people were participating in all areas, adding that they were organising a two-day cricket tournament for the disabled at the Tariq Gardens over the weekend. He said teams from Mardan and Multan were participating. Wheelchair-bound Maria Qureshi, a member of the Milestone Society for Special people, lamented that the disabled and handicapped people made up 10 per cent of the country yet they had no voice in the parliament.

“Seminars and other such events held to mark the International Day for the Disabled Persons only use us as showpieces,” said Naureel Abbas, president of the University of Central Punjab’s Socio-Economic and Political Reform Student Society. He said the government and the civil society should act to safeguard the rights they keep talking about at one or the other seminar.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 4^th, 2010.