Asia Times: Pakistan's disabled unimpressed by new welfare scheme


	May 12, 2000	atimes.com

India/Pakistan

Pakistan's disabled unimpressed by new welfare scheme
By Muddassir Rizvi

ISLAMABAD - In his torn clothes and both limbs paralyzed, Sarfraz is a familiar sight at the traffic lights at a busy crossing in an affluent quarter of the Pakistani capital.

Every time a car stops, the 28-year-old nimbly drags himself to the window to beg for alms from the driver. He earns enough in a day to buy two meals and a bus ticket to return home in a squatter settlement on the city suburbs.

He laughs scornfully when asked if he is pleased with the package of welfare measures recently announced by the government for people like him. ''What will it change?'' he asks. ''They (the government) don't know what our needs are. We are destined to live on leftovers and charities,'' he adds bitterly.

The new measures were unveiled recently amidst much publicity by the military government. Among other things the disabled are now entitled to free education, free health care, and fare concessions on airlines, railways and other public transport systems. Two percent of government jobs have also been set aside exclusively for the disabled and a similar quota provided for admission to technical and professional institutes.

A tenth of Pakistan's about 135 million people suffer from some disability, according to latest World Health Organization (WHO) statistics.

But like Sarfraz, citizen's groups working for the disabled are not impressed. They point out that instead of making those with disabilities feel like normal people, such programs would increase their social isolation. ''The official package would only institutionalize the handouts,'' says Emad Nizami of the Islamabad-based Khalid Nizami Disability Fund.

According to Nizami, whose group is helping impart livelihood skills to the disabled, while the package has some positive features, it would not change social attitudes towards special needs people. ''We believe that disability is not inability. If the disabled are provided with a conducive environment, they can act as productive members of society,'' he asserts.

Other groups working with the disabled agree and say genuine welfare measures should try to help the disabled live near-normal lives. What people with disabilities need are medical, social and economic services as well as counselling. They argue that government policies should aim to make the disabled self-dependent by imparting them suitable livelihood skills training.

However, the government has defended the welfare package which it says was finalized after extensive consultation with groups working with disabled people. The package will change things for the better for the disabled who have been neglected by successive governments in the past, say officials in the Ministry of Social Welfare and Special Education.

Government officials say that the government is also trying to tackle the causes of disabilities - which are mainly poor pre-natal and post-natal health care facilities in most parts of the country. For this, the Health Ministry is training some 66,000 health workers who will be sent to various parts of the country to promote immunization of infants and children and to take care of other basic health needs of the people. The official Expanded Program for Immunization is reaching out to 5.1 million children every year, officials say.

The government is also aware that it would have to spend more for disabled welfare, officials say. At present, there is a $3.4 million budget for this. Welfare Ministry officials admit that this is far below the need considering the large proportion of disabled in the country.

However, groups working with the disabled point out that much can be done even with limited funds and the right welfare programs. One such group is the Islamabad-based Vocational Rehabilitation of Disabled Persons (VREDP) that has so far helped 500 disabled adults, 40 percent of them women, become self-dependent. ''We give Rs5,000 or $100 as credit to the disabled charging an 8 percent interest, in addition to helping them set up small businesses. Our recovery rate is 99 percent,'' says a VREDP spokesman.

The group has also been able to find jobs for the disabled. Over the last year, it helped find jobs for some 200 disabled who had been suitably trained, in factories around Lahore with the help of the Lahore Chambers of Commerce and Industry.

(Inter Press Service)

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