The International Day of Persons with Disabilities is being observed on December 3.
In this context, it is imperative to assess the progress of legal protections in place and their actual effect in the society.
What are the legal protections?
International - The disability rights movement gained momentum in the 1970s when disability was started to be seen as a human rights issue.
The UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (UNCRPD), 2006 was a significant step in this regard.
The Convention gave way to the perception of considering differently abled persons as “subjects with rights” and not “objects of charity”.
Further, the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development mentioned that persons with disabilities must be both “beneficiaries and agents of change”.
India - India is a signatory to the UNCRPD and ratified it in 2007.
In 2016, the Rights of Persons with Disabilities Act was moved forward, replacing the Persons with Disabilities Act, 1995.
The Act recognises 21 kinds of disabilities compared to the previous seven.
It includes a wide range of categories such as dwarfism, speech and language disability, and three blood disorders.
It also increased the quota for disability reservation in higher educational institutions from 3% to 5%.
And reservations in government jobs from 3% to 4%.
What is the state of the differently abled?
Despite legislations, the differently abled continue to face difficulties with an abysmal implementation record.
E.g. Around 85% of seats for persons with disabilities lie vacant in top universities.
Attitudinal, institutional, and infrastructural barriers remain as roadblocks for a disability inclusive society.
Evidently, World Bank has stated that 15% of the world’s population experience some form of disability.
And that they “on average, as a group, are more likely to experience adverse socioeconomic outcomes than persons without disabilities”.
In India, according to the 2011 Census, 2.21% of the population has one or multiple types of disabilities.
This makes India home to one of the largest disabled populations in the world.
However, disability activists see this as a low count and say that in Indian culture there was a tendency to hide disability.
What could possibly be done?
Inclusive workplace - Solutions to enable people with disabilities to seamlessly interact with their environment and colleagues in workplace can increase their participation.
Some of them include:
having braille labels and audio support in lifts for visually and hearing impaired people
providing disabled-friendly restrooms
conducting sensitisation training for leaders and managers
hiring a sign language interpreter
designing the entrance, attendance and access machines, dimensions of passageway and tables, etc in a disabled friendly manner
facilitating assistive hardware solutions like screen readers, magnifiers, adaptive keyboards and mouse, etc in technology driven workplaces
ensuring accessibility guidelines and standards in web-based technologies. E.g. Web Content Accessibility Guideline 2.0 by the World Wide Web Consortium.
Public amenities - Government should ensure that facilities at bus stops, railway stations and airports are disabled friendly.
Steps to make them conform to the accessibility standards relating to parking spaces, toilets, ticketing counters and machines should be taken.
Also, there should be accessible roads to address mobility needs for persons with disabilities, as prescribed in the disability rights act.
It is also highly essential that the currency is made disabled friendly for easy identification, in terms of size and other features.
While there is a long way to go in implementing the laws, it must be kept in mind that a one-size-fits-all approach is less relevant for disabled persons.
The differences in levels and types of disabilities should be acknowledged while offering protections and taking measures.
