Access:

In the fast-developing world, aesthetics and technology have come hand in hand, creating barriers in the environment around. Attitudes insensitive to disability promote these barriers.

The barriers in society can be mainly classified into two: the environmental & attitudinal barriers. The major environmental barriers are of two types: Architectural and communication. Lack of information is another major barrier faced by disabled people.

Architectural barriers in buildings include lack of ramps, railings, signage, braille print, adequate spacing, slip-resistant flooring, accessible toilets and chairs, switches, shelves, wash basins, taps and telephones at an accessible height. This kind of infrastructure helps disabled people to be at ease and do their routines with minimum or no support. Apart from becoming self-reliant, such an internal atmosphere boosts their self-confidence and avoids unnecessary delay.

In public places also, there is a need for ramps and hand rails, kerb ramps in pavements; seats, taps, telephone booths, wash basins at an accessible height, braille print, road signals with adequate timing, audio-visual announcements and usage of bright colours, space for wheel chair users, accessible parking space, sign language, slip-resistant grab bars & flooring, modified play area/ equipments and rules. After all, it is the right of disabled people to be included in all walks of life and is not possible without an accessible/barrier free environment. The Persons with Disabilities Act 1995 provides for a barrier-free environment in all public places and a barrier-free transport system.

It is interesting to note that making a building disabled-friendly costs just two per cent of the total building costs. A lot of cost-effective adaptations can be made within and outside buildings to make them exclusively barrier-free. Mr. Rama Krishnan, President of Amar Seva Sangam, an NGO working for disabled people, is using a lift working on pulleys at his residence. This lift is very simple, easy to manipulate as well as cost-effective. Such innovative and simple techniques can be adapted to suit the needs of disabled people as well as to implement the appropriate provisions of the Persons with Disabilities Act 1995.

Most accessibility structures/designs have specific standards/measurements that have been accepted universally. Some of the features are as follows:

Ramps should have a gradient of ratio 1:12, parking space for disabled people to be within 30 metres of main entrance, handrails to be circular and 40-45mm in diameter, doors to have 900 mm Clear Opening, toilets should have 1950 x 2000 mm (minimum) clear floor space and wash basins should be provided with a knee space of 960 mm width; 200 mm depth and 650 - 680 mm height.

Communication is another area where not enough attention paid to. People having communication barriers are the ones who face many hardships in socialization. At present, communication is bound within language and speech. In reality, much more communication can happen in silence. There is an inappropriate school of thought stating that people with communication disabilities cannot communicate or don’t know how to communicate. The fact is reverse. Everyone communicates in day-to-day life. But, the society that claims to be communicative or communicable does not bother to receive or understand what the disabled person is communicating.

Bhavana, an 11th standard student studying in Lady Andal Matriculation School, has profound disability and can communicate only by pointing with her eyes. She was able to complete her 10th Standard Board Exams with 91 percentage marks in 2006, through a well-designed eye pointing chart and a trained scribe. Therefore, it is the society’s responsibility to remove the barriers in communication, so that any person can communicate in the way he/she wants and is comfortable with; it is just the right to expression that any person would enjoy.

Major communication barriers in the society include lack of Readers, Braille Material / Manuals / Magazines / Government Orders/ Gazette / Newspapers and scribe facility for people with visual Impairment, lack of Sign Language & Sign Language Interpreters for People with Hearing Impairment, lack of communication aids and technical devices for people with severe disabilities and a lack of importance to research on alternative & augmentative communication, which hinders a huge amount of human resource in contributing towards the development of the country. Apart from these, there is an immense need for disabled friendly curriculum and examination system, which involve a variety of options and adaptations.

The areas that get affected due to these barriers include education and information leading to intellectual disability, employment leading to financial disability, play, leisure and health leading to health issues, all of these affecting the Rights and Contribution of disabled people leading to isolation from society, affecting their self esteem, (sense of) social respect and dignity of life leading to an emotional disability; an all-round life of disability.

The real issue behind these barriers is the disability-insensitive attitude of society. Even a stringent law can do very less unless there is a change in the mindset of people and a willingness to accept and respect (disabled) people. There is an attitude of relating a disabled person with his or her disability and not to his/her abilities. The society should be dynamic enough to accept all differences, as the world exists only because of its differences and the natural balance among them. It also becomes the duty of each member of society to respect individuality and mutual rights of any (disabled) member of the society. The society should develop a natural tendency to provide equal opportunities to disabled people, whereby they can enjoy their rights and also contribute to the society. All citizens should have the attitude to value the contribution of disabled people as they do their own. For such an attitudinal shift to happen, the society should believe in disabled people and that they are like anybody else.

An example in this case is Rajiv Rajan, Coordinator, Disability Legislation Unit South, Vidya Sagar, who was included in a mainstream school during his Higher Secondary course. His school and his peers accepted him so well that he was included for playing cricket, his favorite sport, despite being a wheel chair user. The school or the student peers didn’t find any difficulty in changing the rules of the game to some extent and maintained the thrill of playing as well, which enabled Rajiv to be one of the best bowlers of his team.

EDUCATION:

By creating special schools and special teachers in the country, a big mistake has been committed. If there were no special schools, no special teachers, probably the society would have learnt over the years to cater to different disabilities. By segregating them, somewhere, the mainstream schools have never felt it to be their responsibility to include all children.

It is a well known fact that enrolment in mainstream school alone is not the answer. It is important for the education system to respond to the needs of disabled people. Even the integrated education system is catering only to mildly disabled people. Whoever receives special education never gets standardized curriculum; and a very few reach up to college education or even 11th or 12th class.

The results of a survey conducted in 320 odd universities and schools shows that only 0.1 per cent of disabled students are in universities and 0.5 per cent n mainstream schools. Clearly, a huge amount of neglect prevails in the society.

Least priority has been given to the education of disabled children, due to the following reasons:

1. The attitude of the parents, family members and the community is that, there is no use of a disabled child being educated and it is a waste of time, money and other resources, as they think that a disabled child/adult is not productive in any way. The capitalist mentality of the society also prevents the disabled child from enjoying the Right to Education as conferred by the Constitution of India.
2. When there are other siblings for a disabled child, the disabled child gets the least priority in education compared to his/her siblings, either due to poverty of parents or the attitudinal barriers in society. Poverty and disability is a vicious circle. Due to poverty, education is denied for children. Even if parents from the economically weaker sections of the society want to educate their children, the chances of a disabled child going to school is very rare, as the cost involved in educating a disabled child is more when compared to a non-disabled child, due to the architectural barriers in society.
3. The prevalence of architectural and environmental barriers such as inaccessible built environment, school buildings, roads, transport and so on. Many times parents will have to carry their disabled child due to the architectural and environmental barriers. They cannot use public transport, and private transport is too expensive for them. Thus, as the child grows older, their environment is restricted to their home.
4. The education system is also inaccessible for many disabled students, as the teaching methods, learning aids, the curriculum itself and the evaluation system is not disabled friendly. (Braille books and materials, readers for students with visual impairment, sign language interpretation and teaching are not available in most schools). Even when alternative teaching methods are used, the same methods are not used for evaluation. For example if a child is taught using the Picture Communication System they are not evaluated using this system. This allows little opportunity for Disabled People to continue with their education. Augmentative and Alternative Communication Techniques are confined only to few special schools.
5. Sarva Shiksha Abhiyaan (SSA) talks of Education for all. The fact remains that many disabled people are not enrolled under this scheme due to the severity of disability. Also teachers are not trained in inclusive education.
6. The Persons with Disabilities Act, 1995 does not speak of reservations in Higher Educational Institutions and only talks about open universities. Many disabled people are denied entry into professional courses like MBA, Engineering and Medicine due to their disability.

Women with Disabilities:

Women with disabilities suffer a double discrimination, both on the grounds of gender and of impairment. The social status of disabled women varies according to individual circumstances and to the community in which they live. There is ample evidence that women with disabilities experience major psycho-social problems and they have been restricted to home-based activities, while men are likely to be supported in more public and outgoing avenues. Being a woman, they do not have access to better education or find a suitable job. The society thinks that she cannot be a “good wife”, or a “good mother”. This is because of the capitalist attitude of society.

Feticide and infanticide are more in case of women with disabilities.

Though women are organized largely, in reality not even 1 per cent of the disabled women get opportunity to take part, take action and make change in the larger social framework. They are often denied opportunity to interact with others and gain skills to prove their skills due to the discriminatory attitudes. Isolation and confinement based on culture and traditions, attitudes and prejudices often affect disabled women more than men. This isolation of disabled women leads to low self-esteem and negative feelings. Therefore, the needs of girls with disabilities may be more special than needs of any other groups and have to be addressed in all spheres of education.

Regarding education, boys with disabilities attend school more frequently than girls with disabilities.

The women with disabilities are two to three times more likely to be victims of physical and sexual abuse than non-disabled women. Their access to reproductive healthcare is minimal and as a result they suffer greater vulnerability to reproductive health problems and sexually transmitted diseases. There is a lack of awareness regarding women with disabilities and reproductive health needs. More often than not, it is assumed that they do not form part of the target groups because being disabled is associated with being sexless or asexual.
Many parents of young girls with disabilities are often advised to remove the uterus of their wards for safety reasons.

Employment:

In our society, an individual’s worth is often judged by his or her contribution to society and employment has evolved to become a major factor in evaluating their worth.

Even though disabled people constitute a significant 5 to 6 per cent of the population of India, their needs for employment remain unsatisfied, in spite of the implementation of the Persons with Disabilities Act, 1995, which reserves 3 per cent of all categories of jobs in the Government sector for disabled persons.

Of the approximately 90 million people with disabilities in India, only about 0.1 million have succeeded in finding employment in the industries till now. This was found in a study conducted by the National Centre for Promotion of Employment for Disabled People (NCPEDP), an organization working as an interface between the Government, industry, non-governmental organizations and international agencies, to promote employment opportunities for people with disabilities in India.

Based on the research conducted by NCPEDP on the status of employment of disabled people, it was also found that the job market was not prepared in terms of attitude, finance and infrastructure to include disabled person in the workforce of the country. It also seems that even if disabled people are employed, they are either at very low post or that even at a higher post they are being discriminated against and are getting lower wagers compared to their non- disabled counterparts. Thus disabled people are forced to accept the situation because “Some job and some money are better than no and no money”.

The following are some of the factors that hinder placements for disabled people:

1. Poor accessibility to and at work place
2. Mismatch of available jobs and registered candidates
3. lack of data on job profiles required and on persons seeking employment
4. lack of reservation policy in the private sector
5. lack of belief in the capacity of the Disabled People
6. absence in adoption of technology to enhance potential of Disabled People
7. dearth of disabled people with relevant education and training
8. attitude of parents
9. lack of initiative on the part of disabled people themselves

Persons with Disabilities Act, 1995, not only reserves three per cent of all categories of identified jobs in the public sector industries for disabled persons but also provides for incentives for public and private sector companies that have at least 5 per cent of their workforce comprising disabled persons.