Rights of disabled persons: call to bridge rift between government, civil society

Speakers at a workshop emphasised the need to bridge the gap between government machinery and civil society for protecting rights of disabled persons and demanded that the authorities start one-window operation, preferably through social welfare department, to register them, whereas co-ordination be developed between social welfare and labour departments.
Association of Women for Awareness and Motivation (AWAM) organised a consultation meeting on the theme "Mainstreaming Women with Disabilities for their Empowerment", held at Quilim Restaurant in Faisalabad. The prime objective of the meeting was to discuss challenges confronting persons with disabilities (PWDs) and engage stakeholders in strategic planning to tackle these through a participatory approach.
The participants of the consultation recommended following measures to mitigate sufferings of people with disabilities: availability of registration form in Urdu language with English translation (or bilingual) must be ensured and necessary information about the registration process attached with the form in written, the process must be shortened and disability certificate issued within one or two weeks and sent to PWDs through postal service.
They also demanded that authorities, in case of misplacement of original registration certificate, must issue duplicate certificates rather than repeating the whole process, adding that the data must be computerised to avoid duplication and omissions. They said that every Tehsil Headquarter (THQ) Hospital as well as District Headquarter (DHQ) Hospital should be authorised to issue registration certificate keeping in view the problems facing persons with disabilities in mobility, while authorities should also appoint a lady doctor along-with male district surgeon to complete initial assessment step for girls/women with disabilities.
The participants further demanded that all concerned offices must be accessible and established on ground floor especially in the absence of ramp or elevator, authorities should take pertinent steps, based on universally accepted standards, for ensuring easy access to public buildings and places, reserve at-least one toilet/washroom in all concerned offices for persons with disabilities.
They demanded that authorities take appropriate measures such as free transport facility and reserved seats in public transports to remove barriers that prevent a person with disability from participating in receiving services on an equal basis.
At this juncture, EDO-CD Ashiq Hussain Dogar ensured to start a mobile service to register people with disabilities at the union council level, saying a doctor, medical board and representatives of NGOs would be among the team of mobile unit. Iftikhar Ahmed, also, ensured designing a software/database for registration of persons with disabilities in order to avoid duplication and lengthy registration process, and committed to launch web portal for awareness and information among persons with disabilities about the registration process.