Yet a Long Way to Go

Nepal has around 2,400,000 disabled people, or roughly ten percent of the total population. While many of them are born disabled, many also have disability thrust upon them. Accidents (including road accidents for which Nepal is notorious) and lack of proper treatment for preventable and curable diseases like polio and TB are major culprits. Added to these are the deliberate use of mutilation as a tool in the ongoing armed conflict and collateral damage through crossfire or the disruption of health care and deterioration of medical services, especially in rural areas.

Coping with disability is a challenge not just for the disabled themselves, but for society. There are shinning examples of
disabled individuals making a success of their lives, a success measured as much in a triumph of the spirit as anything else.
They are an inspiration for all. And a lost of inspiration is needed for the disabled in Nepal. Of the many problems facing them, perhaps the biggest is simply that of access. Access to education for disabled students is hampered by a sheer lack of teachers of the blind and the deaf. The development of a Nepali sign language, though commendable, has some ways to go yet. There is also the lack of physical access to places of learning for those in wheelchairs. Other challenges before the disabled are attitudinal. Local notions about disability being a punishment from the gods go hand in hand with a tendency to look upon the disabled with pity. Problems at an attitudinal level arise from ignorance. There are misconceptions, for instance, about the ability of the disabled to live a happy conjugal life. One of the ways of coping is for the disabled to organize themselves. Disabled people in rural Nepal need help in strengthening their networks as well as in getting and
utilizing information on their rights. There is need for a focussed advocacy campaign targeted at the decision making levels.
In Uganda in East Africa, the disabled are represented on decision making bodies at all levels of government including parliament. They are there to challenge from within the intellectual barriers to equality. Nepal has a long way to go before it sees similar strides. But it can start building on the measures and arrangements already in place. These include the five percent job reservations for the disabled in the public sector and the broadcasting of programmes for the disabled allowed over Radio Nepal.

Although work for the wellbeing of the disabled in our country started over four decades ago, our disabled compatriots still
remain second class citizens. There are a variety of laws and regulations and other provisions in place to address the problem. But these are not of a compulsory nature, and therein lies the rub. Securing the rights of the disabled is not possible only through the workings of government. Civil society has a role. For the problems of the disabled are truly the problems of society as a whole.

-Binay Dhital,
Information and Advocacy Officer