Speakers for legislation to resolve problems of community of the disabled

The government must introduce comprehensive legislation catering to the needs and problems of disability community with 15% population in Pakistan, and make sincere efforts to bring the most marginalized group of the society into mainstream, so that the suppression and exploitation of their due rights could be stopped.
The government must set up an independent and autonomous national commission / institution to implement and monitor the UN Convention on the rights of persons with disabilities (CRPD) in a true sense, and should ratify its optional protocol to make a better, accessible and barrier-free environment for persons with disabilities.
This was demanded by the participants of the press conference entitled "State of disability rights in Pakistan" to mark international day of persons with disabilities. The press conference was held under the Association of Women for Awareness and Motivation (AWAM) and the Community Based Inclusive Development (CBID Network) in collaboration with the Beacon Foundation, Society of disabled persons for rights and development (SDPRD) and Pakistan Gender Coalition (PGC).
Speaking on the occasion, the director of the AWAM, Nazia Sardar said, "Minimum standards to lead a healthy life are called human rights. To accept the person with disability as a human being in the perspective of human rights, terms such as; crippled, handicap, disabled or mentally retarded, blind, deaf and dumb must be avoided as these terms are clearly derogative, therefore positive terms such as; persons with disabilities, visually impaired, hearing impaired, vocally impaired and intellectually impaired must be used for promotion of positive attitude towards persons with disabilities." "It is the obligation of government to make new serious and safely measures for securing the rights of person with disability, as committed by Pakistan while ratifying international convention on disability rights. National human rights institutions must take the liability to implement and monitor the international treaty CRPD protecting disability rights," she added.
A disability rights advocate, Shazia George said, "There are ineffective laws and policies in our country, which do not cater to the needs and problems of disability community. The government should conduct population census, and must introduce the new comprehensive policies and laws as per accessibility standards, needs and proportion of persons with disabilities." "The government must create a comprehensive, unequivocal, better and detailed national legislation to make the guarantees under CRPD real in practice, and protect them from all forms of neglect, abuse and exploitation. Besides, the government must revise existing strategies, policies and legislation in order to make them conformity with international disability standards and instruments," she demanded.