Ignorance about the plight of the disabled is not just relevant to Pakistan; it is global. The UN itself woke up to the issue of the disabled in 1981 and declared it the International Year of Disability. From 1981 to 2006 — in the latter year the UN adopted the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) – the disabled of the world kept waiting for their issues to be addressed. In 2008, when the CRPD became operational, the disabled came to know that the nomenclature used for them had been changed from ‘disabled persons’ to “persons with disabilities’ (PWDs). Pakistan ratified the CRPD in 2011 and, as per Article Four of the CRPD, took upon itself the responsibility for ensuring and promoting the full realisation of all human rights and fundamental freedoms for all PWDs without discrimination of any kind on the basis of disability.
On the one hand, there is the binding agreement of the CRPD while, on the other hand, there are issues impeding Pakistan’s way to fulfilling its obligations under the CRPD. Four major issues can be identified in this regard. The first is the definitional crisis. In the Disabled Persons (Employment and Rehabilitation) Ordinance of 1981, the term disabled person was used for the target population under four categories: “blind, deaf, physically handicapped or mentally retarded”. However, the last population census in 1998 counted 2.49 percent of the population as disabled out of a total of 132 million under seven heads (blind, deaf/mute, crippled, insane, mentally retarded, multiple disability and others). This is how two definitions predicating on the types of the disabled appeared. Nevertheless, in its preamble, the CRPD has acknowledged that “disability is an evolving concept” and should be unlimited by definitions, as the CRPD itself has avoided defining it directly. Furthermore, the preamble tells us that “Disability results from the interaction between persons and impairments and attitudinal and environmental ba
iers that hinders their full and effective participation in society on an equal basis with others.” Article One, describing the purpose of the CRPD, says that PWDs “include [not defined as] those who have long-term physical, mental, intellectual or sensory impairments, which in interaction with various ba
iers may hinder their full and effective participation in society on an equal basis with others.” Thus, the option for the agreed definitions of both disability and PWDs is still open for Pakistan.
The second issue is the absence of cu
ent data. Since 1998, no census has been conducted to count the exact or approximate number of PWDs — even if the societal trend to hide a disability or the mention of a PWD in a family as a stigma is overlooked — to fathom the magnitude of the disability crisis. Similarly, no data is available on the life expectancy of PWDs born with a disability. Regarding the number of PWDs in Pakistan, reliance is placed on the World Report on Disability compiled in 2011 jointly by the World Health Organisation (WHO) and the World Bank (WB). The report said that 15 percent of the world population was PWDs. The implication is that 15 percent of Pakistan’s projected population at 192 million in 2015 considered PWDs at about 28 million, a staggering figure. However, the analogy employed overlooks the fact that the report also counts those who are afflicted with disability owing to any accident or natural catastrophe, any disease occu
ing late in life or even aging. This point makes one understand the reason CRPD is acknowledging disability as an evolving concept, both by definition and classification. Nevertheless, to meet the data collection obligation under Article 31 of the CRPD, the substitute for the census can be adopted by motivating the recently elected local bodies to collect the disability-specific data (under any evolved definition that may also include the age group; for instance, child, teenage, adult, middle age and old PWDs) at the Union Council level.
The third issue is of obsolescent legislation. The 1981 Ordinance — despite being adopted, in the wake of the 18th Constitutional Amendment took place in 2010, by Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhawa provinces with necessary amendments in 2012 — has outlived its utility for its being deficient in both regulatory and punitive contents. It focuses mainly on rehabilitation (e.g. medical treatment, segregated education and vocational training), employment and welfare of PWDs in both government and private sectors, though the ordinance is silent on the definitions of rehabilitation and welfare. Society in general has long crossed the limits of the ordinance; Modern research has introduced new models of PWDs’ habilitation and rehabilitation. For instance, the National Policy for Persons with Disabilities (NPPD), formulated by the government of Pakistan in November 2002, owed to Pakistan’s being signatory to the Biwako Millennium Framework for Action towards an inclusive, ba
ier-free and rights’ based society for PWDs in Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP) under the UN concluded in October 2002. To implement the policy, the Pakistan government devised the National Plan of Action in March 2006 to work five yearly till 2025. Unfortunately, the policy and the implementing plan face five-pronged problems: they do not flow from the 1981 Ordinance, they cannot ove
ide the 1981 Ordinance, they are not protected by a legislative cover, they do not recommend any legislation and they are ove
uled by the CRPD, though the CRPD is not too contradictory of them. An amendment to the 1981 Ordinance — even in the adopted version by the provinces — considering the CRPD is required.
The fourth issue is the absence of preventive measures to forestall disabilities to check the growing enormity of the disability crisis. The 1981 Ordinance is silent on this aspect and so is the CRPD. Though the NPPD addresses the prevention aspect aptly, it is discredited as has been pointed out. To check the disability crisis, Pakistan has to put in place a prevention regime. Research can be promoted to look for ways to prevent disability, both congenital and acquired, especially in children who constitute a major chunk of PWDs.
The writer is a freelance columnist and can be reached at qaisa