Materials:

Country Paper: Bangladesh (4)

by
Md Abdus Sattar Dulal
BPKS

1. OVERVIEW OF THE NATIONAL SITUATION

Bangladesh is a small beautiful country situated in the northeastern part of Southeast Asia. It is fenced by the Bay of Bengal, India and Myanmar. This is a land of 126.8 million (as per official record 1998) people comprising Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, Christians and others. Over 98% of the people speak in Bangla, although English is widely used. Its landmass is 147,570 square kilometers.

Bangladesh is one of the most densely populated countries of the world with population density 854 per sq km. Total population is126.8 million and sex ratio is 106 males per 100 females. The country is divided into six administrative divisions and sixty-four districts. Dhaka is the capital and the largest metropolitan city of Bangladesh.

Though disability is a major social and economic phenomenon in Bangladesh, but there is hardly any reliable data in this regard to reveal the actual number. As a result, But it is assumed that the prevalence of disability in Bangladesh is not less than the WHO estimation (10%) for the developing countries. The officially recognized figure is about 130 million.

However from the available data and information of Bangladesh Burea of Statistics (BBS, 1998), based on health and medical perspective, proportional prevalence of disability/impairment of different categories at all ages are visual 31.3%, physical (including leprosy and goiter) 35.8%, hearing and speech 28% and Mental Retardation 4.9%. It is very difficult to elaborate the majority causes of disability in Bangladesh, as most of those causes are congenital and unknown. The known common causes of disabilities in the country are lack of awareness, malnutrition, industrial and traffic accidents etc.

The psychosocial and Human Rights situation of disability in the country is far below than the minimum acceptable standard. PWDs in Bangladesh have been facing a strong difficult situation in their day-to-day lives, which badly impairs their socio-economic and cultural activities as well as the basic rights and facilities as human beings and/or complete citizens of the country.

Access to medical services:

PWDs of Bangladesh do not have proper access to health and medical services. Inadequate facilities for treatment and rehabilitation of the disabled patients are making their lives miserable and vulnerable. Lack of professionals, specialist physicians and even properly trained staff members at the hospitals creates lots of problems for PWDs.

Access to education:

Access to education for persons with disabilities is very poor due to lack of facilities, resource teachers and unaffordable tuition fees. Most of the educational institutes are not accessible for wheelchair users. Discrimination and ridicules by others are common phenomenon for students with disabilities in Bangladesh. There is no provision for governmental support to the disabled students of all categories where there are many programs like food for education, total literacy movement etc. run by the government to promote education for mass community. Many parents create barriers for disabled students, as they do not want their children to study along with any disabled students.

Access to job and employment:

Currently access to job and employment both in public and private sector organizations are not available for PWDs. Potential employers don't have confidence on the capabilities of people with disabilities to carry out the required task of the job and at time. Strong lack of understanding in this regard among the employers is a big hurdle for PWDs. On the other hand without having a single opportunity the disabled persons cannot improve their professional skills and competence required for a specific job. Many employers consider employment of a disabled person may impair the decency of their organizations.

Transportation:

Transportation for persons with disabilities is another big difficulty in Bangladesh. Transportation system in Bangladesh is fully inaccessible for persons with disabilities. There is no safety and security for them. Deriving license is restricted for disabled people. Transportation staffs are not properly oriented with the special needs for disabled persons. As a result they cannot be supportive to PWDs during traveling. Platforms and ticket counters for buses and trains are not accessible for them. The situation for Air and river transportation is worst. Air traveling through international routs is little bit friendly as there are boarding bridges. But for domestic traveling there are no minimum facilities. River transportation is full of risks for PWDs. At many places there are no gangways. So far there were no accessible vehicle for PWDs in the public or in the private sector. But in 2003 a private transportation company declared to have introduced three accessible buses in the capital city. But until my participation in this seminar we haven't have seen that a single person with disability could avail that opportunity. This is the situation of the capital city. But the situation of other 63 districts is beyond to any explanation.

In the city, public and private buildings, offices, shopping centers and even footpaths aren't accessible for wheelchair users and visually impaired. The illegal traders and vendors occupy most of the footpaths. Footpaths' edges aren't sloped with the main path so that wheelchairs can have access to the footpaths. As such PWDs in Bangladesh have to always depend on others for their transportation.

Children with Disabilities:

Children With Disabilities (CWDs) are one among the most vulnerable groups in Bangladesh. A large number of children under five die every year due to tetanus, acute respiratory infections pneumonia, diarrhea and malnutrition in the country. Among them the number of children with disabilities is significant. Children with disabilities (CWDs) become the first victim of discrimination by others. In the family they are not usually provided with same food, clothing, shelter and care as their peers. The family usually ignores their needs, especially health and educational needs. As a result they are deprived of their basic rights to education, health, participation and recreation. Many a times, the others also abuse CWDs.

Women With disabilities:

Women in Bangladesh are generally the victims of discrimination in the male dominated society underpinned by conservative traditions. Social and cultural restrictions confine them to the "protection" of men in their family. Woman With disabilities (WWDs) are considered as victims of double disability in the society. Firstly their disability for being women and secondly they are disabled physically, visually or mentally. Because of their restriction being women parameter of their disability increase a lot. On the other hand they are frequently abused as vulnerable women. Incidences of sexual abuse of women with disabilities are not also uncommon in the community.

Community does not pay any attention to the opinion of the women with disabilities. Facilities for their education and healthy development are badly restricted in the country. Even the people cannot imagine of a happy familial and conjugal life for a Women With Disabilities in Bangladesh.

Efforts for Independence:

Though the concept of independent living is not familiar and feasible in the country but there are a number people with disabilities have been surviving and living with dignity and independently when they were discarded by their own family and relatives. In this regard, PWDs of Bangladesh might play pioneer roles to demonstrate practical examples on how a person with disability can survive and be independent (without taking others' support) within strong psychological and physical difficulties. Fully discarded by the family and the community many of our disabled colleagues, brothers and sisters have continued striving for better lives and finally won over the situation setting instances of having dignified independent lives.

2. GENERAL BACKGROUND ON NATIONAL POLICIES

The government of the nation is fully concerned with the issues, roles, norms and standards of to promote sustainable livelihoods for persons with disabilities in Bangladesh. As a result is has consented and signed different declarations and proclamations concerning disability issues nationally and internationally. It was well understood by the government that the laws and policies have no alternatives to protect equal opportunities, rights and non-discrimination for persons with disabilities; we didn't have any of those till 1995. In 1993, the government of Bangladesh has set up a National Co-ordination Committee (NCC) on Disability under the Ministry of Social Welfare in order to consolidate the activities of different govt. and non-govt. organizations to promote a sustainable livelihood for persons with disabilities in the mainstream. And then a strong need for the national policy and legislation were revealed. The government of the country extended every possible support and encouragement in this regard and consequently a National Policy on Disability Related Concerns was developed and approved by the Cabinet Ministry in 1995, outlining the guidelines for the prevention, identification, education, rehabilitation, research and management of national programs for the welfare and equalization of opportunities for PWDs. Following the National Policy an Action Plan on Disability was approved by the Government in 1996 for implementation of programs and activities, strategies and duties of concern for PWDs. In the year 2001 the government of Bangladesh has passed legislation "Disability Welfare Act-2001" to protect and safeguard the rights and dignity of the Persons with Disability, ensure their participation in the national and social programmes and their general welfare.

Besides, the honorable Prime Minister of the country has taken nine important decisions to ensure rights and opportunities for development of the disabled persons. Among those nine will be implemented in a short-term basis on accessibility, employment and to eliminate harassment by different authorities. The other three will be implemented in a long-term basis on the promotion of economic activities by PWDs. Before that the government has exempted all relevant taxes for importing the assistive devices from abroad.

A National Foundation for the Development of Disabled Person (NFDDP) has also been established and started working since 2000 under the Ministry of Social Welfare to consolidate governmental support and assistance in this regard.

3. REVIEWS AND ANALYSIS OF THE ISSUES AND TRENDS

In Bangladesh disability had been considered as a humanitarian or charity issue for long rather than a development or rights based issue. But the trend has been changing nowadays. The changes have been taking places in the arena of awareness, education, health, skill and training, socio-economic and cultural development. Disability is now brining into consideration in many of the burning social development issues like women empowerment and gender, good governance and social security safety nets. It is indeed a good sign for future Bangladesh.

In Bangladesh, there are several thousands of NGOs have been working in different sectors of development. But the number of NGOs working in disability and development is very trifle. The total number of NGOs is about only 200 that have been formed and managed by the disabled persons or have been working for the disabled persons or disability is only one component among many others. Among those, the number of organizations working exclusively for disabled persons and the organizations comprised of and managed by the disabled persons is not more than 20.

There are very few among those NGO's formed and managed by a very limited number of PWDs, Many a times it doesn't exceed singular number. Most of those organizations are urban based and the number of PWDs at management level is similar. In the other organizations there is no PWDs in the management level and even the PWD beneficiaries don't have access to participate in their need assessment, policy development, decision-making and implementation of their programs.

Basically the NGOs providing their services on awareness raising, training, education and providing health care services. Some NGOs are operating credit programs among their beneficiaries. "Action Aid Bangladesh recently conducted a survey on NGO's working in the field of disability. 68% are working at grass-roots level and 24% at national level. 47% are working with the Community Based Rehabilitation approach, 12% with an Institution Based Rehabilitation approach and 41% follow both approaches. Only 1 organization works with Self help concept." BPKS is the mentioned organization that implements programs through PWDs' Self-Initiatives to Development (PSID) approach in 12 districts of the country.

There are very few NGOs that have clinical facilities for treatment and rehabilitation of the disabled persons. Among those The Leprosy Mission, Damien Foundation, Santi Handicapped Center, Pangu Shishu Niketon, Society for Assistance to Hearing Impaired Children (SAHIC), Bangladesh National Society for the Blind (BNSB), Impact Foundation Bangladesh, Center for Rehabilitation of the Paralyzed (CRP) could be mentioned. CRP provides treatment and rehabilitation training to the paraplegic patients, which confines its services only towards the spinal cord injured patients.

Its a matter of strong optimism that the government has been providing every possible supports to ensure rights and opportunities for persons with disabilities. By this time the government already formed different bodies and committees from local administrative/governmental level to national decision-making level to ensure equal rights, opportunities and participation of disabled persons and protection of their rights. In this regard there is a National Coordination Committee under the Chair of the Honorable Minister, Ministry of Social Welfare, seven sub-committees in the six relevant Ministries like Ministry of Social Welfare, Ministry of Works, Ministry of Establishment, Ministry of Information and Ministry of Health.

At the district level there are Welfare Committees under the leadership of the Deputy Commissioners (DCs) of respective districts where provision for participation of the PWDs has been ensured to contribute to their own development and development of others in the community. Though very insignificant some positive achievements have been made in the field of accessibility and communication, education, training and employment, prevention of disabilities, rehabilitation, assistive and adaptive devices, priority credit systems, self-help organization of the PWDs, and regional cooperation.

4. GOOD PRACTICES OF SYNERGY AMONG VARIOUS STAKEHOLDERS

The civil society and NGOs, support agencies and the government have joined their efforts together in a good synergetic way to address the issue 'disability' as an important national development issue. At present the issues of disability has been addressed in multilateral approaches by the indigenous NGOs and organizations in the country. Despite some distortions there has been created an enthusiastic environment and trend towards working for development of the PWDs in the socio economic and cultural aspects. Those approaches include Community Based Rehabilitation (CBR), Institution Based Rehabilitation (IBR), some experimental Home Based Rehabilitation (HBR), Community Approaches to Handicaps; few integrated and outreach approaches and PWDs' Self-initiatives to Development.

Among all other approaches, being practiced in Bangladesh PWDs' Self-initiatives to Development approach has drawn special attention and interest of majority persons with disabilities in Bangladesh. In an opinion survey in the 12 districts PWDs, donor agencies, community peoples and international consultants gave their mandate for PWDs' Self-initiatives to Development approach because it has achieved significant success in streamlining the total development process of the community. It bears the belongingness of the PWDs towards the efforts for development of the PWDs and all others in the community. Besides, it incorporates almost all components of the abovementioned approaches and has established as a unique, holistic development approach for all. The good practices of synergy among various stakeholders has been demonstrated only the Self-Help Organizations of PWDs.

Self Help Organizations

The history of self-help organizations of people with disabilities in Bangladesh is closely related with the self-help movement of the PWDs. In Bangladesh Self-help movement of the persons with disabilities has been pioneered by Bangladesh Protibandhi Kallyan Somity (BPKS) as the only cross disability self-help organization of the country since 1985.

BPKS organizes the persons with disabilities of all categories toward forming their own organization at grassroots levels through self-initiatives to contribute to their own and others' development. At present BPKS has been going through a unique innovative approach Persons with disabilities Self-Initiatives to Development (PSID). The main theme of this approach is 'Initiatives of our own' which may be considered as the action oriented practical version of the theme of DPI 'Voices of our own'.

From the very direct and field based experiences and other circumstances, this approach has been emerged as a holistic development approach to ensure rights, participation and actualization of opportunities equally to all. By this effort PWDs at grassroots levels become self-initiative to contribute to the mainstream development through their involvement in the family, society, national and international affairs. BPKS guides those initiatives for about three years and then a significant improvement achieved in peoples' socio-economic, political and living status through increasing humanity, reducing barriers by the response and initiative of PWDs. And then the PWDs of the community come under systematic and official organizational structure as Disabled Peoples' Organizations to Development (DPODs).

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Main	Programme	Materials	Online	Bangkok

	Expert Group Meeting and Seminar on an International Convention to Protect and Promote the Rights and Dignity of Persons with Disabilities Bangkok, Thailand, 2-4 June 2003