Disability-Sensitive Policy Design And Evaluation For
Sustainable Livelihoods For All In The Twenty-First Century: Hong Kong Experience in a
Changing Regional Context
Joseph Kwok
Part 1 of 6 | Next
Go to other parts: 1 2 3 4 5 6
INTRODUCTION
This paper discusses various issues concerning sustainable livelihoods of, safety nets
and social services for, inclusion and empowerment of, people with disability (PWD). As a
background, the discussions will be preceded by a presentation on Hong Kong's approaches
to defining disability, classifying and enumerating people with disability.
This paper will be organized into five sections as follows: definition of disability;
statistics on PWD; legislative measures; social services, safety nets and sustainable
livelihoods policies and programmes; new initiatives and critical challenges of the
twenty-first century.
SECTION ONE
DEFINITION AND CLASSIFICATION OF PEOPLE WITH DISABILITIES
The term 'people with disabilities' (PWD) has been referred to rather frequently in
various walks of life, including governmental (GO) and non-governmental (NG) platforms, as
well as the media. However there have been no commonly agreed definitions as to who PWD in
Hong Kong are. Some significance differences in the interpretations of the term PWDs can
be found among the public, the legislation, government policy and NGO platforms.
Public Perception
For the public, most of them when prompted would consider the term PWD to include
people with physical (90%) and mental (83%) handicap, and less associate with mental
illness (57%) and sensory disability (52%), those with mobility challenges, visual and
hearing visual impairments (EOC, 1999).
Legislative Definition
The legislative definition of the term disability is not only precise but also rather
broad in coverage. The definition of disability is found in Chapter 487, Disability
Discrimination Ordinance (DDO) (Gazette Number: L.N. 315 of 1998 ). According to DDO,
disability means:
"(a) total or partial loss of the person's bodily or mental functions;
(b) total or partial loss of a part of the person's body;
(c) the presence in the body of organisms causing disease or illness;
(d) the presence in the body of organisms capable of causing disease or illness;
(e) the malfunction, malformation or disfigurement of a part of the person's body;
(f) a disorder or malfunction that results in the person learning differently from a
person without the disorder or malfunction; or
(g) a disorder, illness or disease that affects a person's thought processes, perception
of reality, emotions or judgment or that results in disturbed behaviour, and includes a
disability that, (i) presently exists; (ii) previously existed but no longer exists; (iii)
may exist in the future; or (iv) is imputed to a person."
The breadth of the legislative definition of the term disability could be illustrated
by its inclusion of recovered mentally ill patients, and HIV carriers are protected by the
DDO.
Administrative Defintion
For policy and services planning purposes, the Government has adopted a more
epidemiological and clinical approach. The official Hong Kong Rehabilitation Programme
Plan (RPP) recognizes only eight categories of disability for policy and service to be
included in its comprehensive rehabilitation policy: autism, hearing impairment, mental
handicap, mental illness, physical handicap, speech impairment, visceral disability, and
visual impairment (Health and Welfare Bureau, 1999). It is worthwhile to note that autism
and visceral disability have been included in RPP only within the last five years.
Return to top |
