Association of Women for Awareness and Motivation (Awam) organised a policy dialogue titled "Persons with Disabilities: Legislative Cover and Inclusion" aimed at discussing grey areas in different policies, legislation and practices by involving key stakeholders in upholding the rights of persons with disabilities.
Speaking at the occasion, Awam Executive Secretary Naseem Anthony said, "It is imperative for the government to review existing strategies and policies to make them conformity with international disability standards and instruments. The government must create a comprehensive, unequivocal, better and detailed national legislation to make the guarantees under CRPD real in practice."
Awam Co-ordinator Shazia George said, "The government must establish a separate ministry dedicated to the persons with disabilities, and set up an autonomous national commission/ institution to implement and monitor the UN Convention on the rights of persons with disabilities (CRPD) in a true sense." MPA Anjum Safdar and MPA Razia Joseph were of the view that the government of Punjab had amended the Disabled Persons (employment and rehabilitation) Ordinance, 1981 in the first quarter of 2012, and would take more initiatives for their empowerment.
Akhter Aziz and Dr Zahida Naz, the representatives of Labour and social welfare departments, were of the view that the authorities of health department must be taken on board to remove the hurdles facing people with disabilities during registration process. The medical superintendent of DHQ hospital must make certain that examine of people with vocally, hearing and visually impairment be completed in a single day rather than several days. Dr Sajid Ali and Romail Anthony were of the view that females felt embarrassment and hesitation in exposing their body parts affected by disability, before the male surgeon; therefore a lady doctor must be engaged to examine the girl/women with disabilities in DHQ Hospital keeping in view our cultural norms, values and limitations.
They said that Social welfare department must issue disability registration certificate of unique format rather than different formats for each district, to make it valid and acceptable in all parts of the country, and disability registration process must be integrated into one-window operation with the better co-ordination of all government stakeholders including social welfare, labour and health departments.
The policy dialogue was joined by 37 persons/women with disabilities, lawyers, media personnel, representatives of organisations focussing disability issues, and parliamentarians namely; MPA Razia Joseph and MPA Anjum Safdar (Member of the disability provincial council). The other prominent participants included; Naseem Anthony (Executive Secretary-Awam), Shazia George (Co-ordinator-Awam), Suneel Malik (Director-PHD Foundation), Dr Zahida Naz (Medical Social Officer), Akhter Aziz (Manager-Labour Department), Farooq Butt (Deputy District Officer-Community Development Department), M Tahir (Deputy District Officer-Social Welfare Department), Basit Hafeez Advocate, Rukhsana Advocate, Sehrish Advocate and Dr Sajid Ali (Executive Director-SDPRD).