AWAM urges government to provide relief to disabled persons

Association of Women for Awareness and Motivation (AWAM) organised a consultative meeting on the theme "Registration process for persons with disabilities: Hurdles and required measures" held at a local hotel in Faisalabad. This consultation was attended by participants including women with disabilities, political workers and representatives of government departments, media and civil society organisations.
The purpose of the consultation was to engage stakeholders in participatory exercise for tackling the challenges being faced by disabled persons. AWAM urges government to provide relief to the disabled persons and registration certificate must be issued within one-week time. It also urged the district board of disability to make registration process short and easy.
During the consultation, Naseem Anthony (Executive Secretary-AWAM) and Shazia George (Co-ordinator-AWAM) highlighted the problems of disabled people through a presentation, and emphasised the need to bridge the gap between government machinery and civil society for providing relief to the most oppressed group of our society.
Khalida Mansoor (Parliamentarian), Sarfraz Ahmed (DO-Social Welfare), Dr Captain Muhammad Akram (AMS-DHQ Hospital), Dr Zahida Naz (MSO-Social Welfare), Akhtar Aziz (Manager-Labour), Malik Tahir (Supervisor-NADRA), George Clement (Political worker), Amina Zaman (Director-ASDP) and Qadeer Sikandar (Journalist) shared their views for alleviating the problems of the PWDs. The participants of the consultation through participatory exercise recommended following measures in order to mitigate the sufferings of people with disabilities that:
The disability registration process should be made one-window operation at DHQ hospital with the co-ordination of social welfare, labour and health departments, therefore one representative of labour department must be shifted to DHQ hospital on permanent basis for ensuring friendly disability registration process.
The disability registration certificate must be issued within one-week time. The availability of registration form in Urdu along with English (or bilingual) must be ensured, and necessary information about the registration process of persons with disabilities must be attached with the registration form. A lady doctor along with male district surgeon should be engaged to complete the initial assessment step for girls/women with disabilities keeping in view our cultural norms, values and limitations; NADRA should accept all patterns of disability registration certificate issued by social welfare department, and must issue CNIC with disability logo to persons with disabilities for availing all benefits and facilities provided by government for them.
Khalida Mansoor said, "People with disabilities are the most deprived and neglected group of our society, therefore we should create friendly atmosphere for them to excel in life." She promised to address the disability issues on the floor of the parliament through the submission of bill for the rights of persons with disabilities.