PESHAWAR: “My daughter is my pride, I let her feel independent and it makes her stronger day by day,” said Gul Shad, the father of 10-year old Maawa, a wheelchair tennis player.
Maawa’s house in Peshawar, the capital of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, is completely adjusted to her needs, as Gul Shad, a civil engineer, designed it to be accessible. “At home she can go to the kitchen, toilet and drawing room without any assistance,” he said.
Not only Maawa, but most of the athletes who participated in the National Ability Sports Festival at Peshawar’s Islamia College on Thursday draw their strength from family support. Policies to protect their rights exist on paper, yet are hard to be found anywhere else.
The sports event, organized by the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) and Friends of Paraplegics Pakistan was held ahead of International Day of Persons with Disabilities – which falls on Dec. 3.
Participants and their supporters arrived from all over the country to play cricket, ludo, badminton and table tennis, and to make a strong case for being seen and treated as equal members of Pakistani society.
“When our own people support us, it gives great courage,” said Saeed Khan, a rickshaw driver Hyderabad and member of a wheelchair cricket team representing Sindh province.
This support, however, is still little and coming only from relatives and friends. Society at large is not only far from accommodating, but also too often ready to blame the victims. “In our society disability is still stigmatized. If a disabled person does something wrong, people would say ‘that’s why you are disabled,’” Mushtaq Hussain, a disability activist with Friends of Paraplegics Pakistan, told Arab News.
While “The Future is Accessible,” the theme of the sporting competition, reflected the hope that positive change is coming for persons with disabilities, the present reality is far from it.
Pakistan ratified the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities in 2011, with commitment to introduce comprehensive legislation to ensure the full and equal enjoyment of all fundamental freedoms by people with disabilities. In accordance with the convention, appropriate laws have been enacted, but their implementation leaves a lot to be desired.
According to Hussain, not a single government building in Khyber Pakhtunkwha is 100 percent accessible and, ironically, even the buildings of special education institutions, constructed specifically for persons with disabilities, fail short in terms of access, he said.
According to the 2018 census, nearly 3.3 million Pakistanis live with various kinds of disabilities. But in reality, Hussain said, the number is much greater. It will be difficult to design proper policies when data is inadequate.
Another problem is in the language. “Crippled,” “insane,” “retarded,” is how the census refers to persons with disabilities, presenting them as those who need care rather than as citizens with equal rights.
Sumaira Tabasum, 29, who came to the sports event to play cricket, obtained her master’s degree in education. Although muscular dystrophy greatly constrains her movement, she does not give up.
“Life is not easy for persons like me, but if we are mentally strong we can cope with difficulties,” she told Arab News. But she is disappointed that her rights have been neglected. “The federal and provincial governments have worked on legislation for the rights of persons with disabilities, but unfortunately hardly any department takes it seriously,” she said.
The difficulty for disabled persons in becoming independent is in their rights being neglected, not necessarily in their bodies. “Free education and a job quota of 4 percent have been specified (in the law), but no one cares and many educated disabled persons don’t get the employment they deserve,” said Hussain of Friends of Paraplegics.
“Disability is a state of mind, not body,” Syed Muhammad Ilyas, the head of the Paraplegic Center in Hayatabad, Peshawar, told Arab News.
This sentiment is shared by Azhar Ali, 26, who is partly paralyzed due to polio. A graduate in commerce and tailor by profession, Ali is also a batsman for the Sindh cricket team that came for the Islamia College event. He told Arab News that with his family’s support he could become a totally independent person.
Disability is what paralyzes not one’s body, but their mind and spirit. “It is lack of support that makes a person mentally paralyzed. That is the actual disability,” he said.