Wednesday, October 23, 2019

Advocacy groups outline hurdles for disabled in India

Kolkata: The recent humiliation of two disability rights activists at Kolkata airport has led to much hue and cry, but advocacy groups say such experiences are common with accessibility issues, non-implementation of laws and policies and lack of sensitisation of on-ground personnel still posing serious hurdles for the disabled in the country.

The facilities continue to be inadequate at public places such as railway stations and airports, or during train, road or air travel even over two years after the Rights of Persons with Disabilities Act, 2016, came into force following a two-decade long effort.

Organisations campaigning for the cause of the disabled feel it is high time the Central and state governments act with firmness as the country, as per the 2011 Census, has a huge 2.2 crore people with various forms of disability -- the largest in the world, and more than the current total population of neighbouring Sri Lanka.

"Unofficial estimates, however, put the figures at 5 crore," Shuvojit Moulik, founder of Civiiian Welfare Foundation, told IANS.

He said the main problem for the disabled in public places is accessibility.

At airports, though it is mandatory to have one person per airline with skills in sign language to help out the hearing impaired people, they are virtually non-existent.

On the contrary, people with artificial legs like the Jaipur Foot are often asked during security check why they are wearing them instead of using a wheelchair, said Moulik.

Shampa Sengupta, Director of the advocacy group Sruti Disability Rights Centre, was present at the Kolkata airport on Sunday when Kuhu Das, a polio survivor, was told to open her callipers by a woman CISF officer so that they could be put through the scanner.

When Das said she would have to take off her trousers for that, the officer called her colleague, who said they "have never encountered such a person".

A second incident took place in which a private airline was not allowing Jija Ghosh, who has cerebral palsy, to travel alone.

Ironically, the two activists, Sengupta and another colleague were bound for Delhi to attend an interaction on disability related issues.

After the incidents triggered protests, the airport authorities issued an unconditional public apology, promising to take up the matter strongly "with concerned teams".

"See, CISF is a security force trained under the Indian government. The said airlines is a private entity. But both behaved similarly because they didn''t know how to handle persons with disability. That''s because no training has been imparted, so the skills are not there.

"There should be regular orientation programmes for the CISF and all other groundstaff, as also for the plane crew," Sengupta told IANS.
23/10/19 IANS/Outlook
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