Measuring access rights of people with physical disabilities in rural Pakistan | |
| Author | Ahmad, Mahtab |
| Call Number | AIT Diss. no.RD-11-06 |
| Subject(s) | People with disabilities--Pakistan Human rights--Pakistan |
| Note | A disse1tation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirement for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in '] Regional and Rural Development Planning, School of Environment, Resources and Development |
| Publisher | Asian Institute of Technology |
| Abstract | Over the past few decades, several international m1tlat1ves such as the recent United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (UNCRPD) have been promoted to provide guidelines for ensuring the rights of individuals with disabilities and their inclusion into the mainstream of society. After ratifying the guidelines, the Government of Pakistan like many other developing countries also formulated accordingly a national policy for the disabled people. In Pakistan, the district governments being duty bearers at grassroots level are mainly responsible for the delivery of public services and protecting the rights of various segments of society especially in rural areas including the disabled, considering that majority of persons with physical disabilities in the country live in rural areas. However, in spite of several policy provisions, the accessibility particularly to various rights-based public services and opportunities by the disabled persons, is still a contentious issue, raising doubts on the effectiveness of the response of such services especially in promoting the disability rights at the grassroots level. Therefore, this study aims to assess the status of how disability rights have been advanced at local levels in Pakistan focusing mainly on the accessibility to public transport and healthcare by the disabled people as well as to the provisions in terms of economic support, and to highlight the barriers that obstruct them from accessing such rights-based services. In order to form a holistic picture, this study assessed the awareness of elected local representatives on the day-to-day challenges of local disabled people and disability rights, and subsequently measured the level of accessibility by the disabled to public transport, health services, and economic support provisions, using a comprehensive set of indicators. The data used for this study were collected from both primary and secondary sources. The primary information were collected through semi-structured in-depth interviews of 31 elected local representatives, and 245 individuals with physical disabilities between 15-35 years old, interview of key informants, and actual observations, while the secondary information were accessed from relevant ministries, government offices, NGOs, and public libraries. The collected data were analyzed through qualitative and quantitative techniques. The results of this research indicated that majority of the elected male and female representatives had no knowledge concerning the day-to-day challenges of local disabled people and their rights, which is extremely important for promoting disability rights at the grassroots level. The findings also revealed the stereotyped notion largely prevailing at local levels, that disability is a 'personal tragedy' and persons with impaired parts of their bodies are not 'whole persons' and considered 'necessarily dependent', and thus cannot be active participants in the communities. With such sense of over protection, the local duty bearers who are the public representatives consider it less important to know about the dayto-day challenges and rights of the local disabled persons. In measuring the level of accessibility to public transport by the disabled persons, various features of travelling as well as those of the transport services were taken into account to develop the indexes. The results revealed that the overall level of access to public transport was 0.41 and 0.38 by the disabled men and women, respectively. The study also showed that poor environmental conditions from their points of origin to destinations and terminal facilities, unfriendly vehicles and behaviour of transport staff, and travel safety and security threats were the real barriers that impede the accessibility by the disabled persons to transport services and routes. Moreover, the men and women with moving impairments lll became more vulnerable with regards to mobility using any means of transport as they have to bear the extra fare for an assistant or hire a special mode of transport to access the basic services like healthcare, and other opportunities. Regarding access to healthcare, the effectiveness of healthcare provisions, equity, and users' satisfaction on the quality of services were considered to assess the level of accessibility to healthcare by the disabled people. The results showed that the overall levels of access were 0.34 and 0.28 for the disabled men and women, respectively, indicating poor access and under utilization of health services by persons with disabilities. Moreover, the qualitative analysis elicited an array of barriers relevant to the environment, healthcare delivery processes, and health subsidies that prevent disabled individuals from accessing health services. In measuring the access to economic empowerment support provisions, formal jobs, and informal works by the disabled persons, the vocational skills they received formally or acquired informally, micro-credit facility, and public safety nets were taken into account to develop an index in accordance with the Human Development Index (HDI). The results indicated that the levels of achievement of the disabled persons were at the minimum values of 0.129 and 0.106 for men and women with physical disabilities, respectively. The evidences clearly indicated that most economic empowerment support services were elusive for the poor with disabilities. The study also found that several lending agencies providing training and micro-credit services to the poor were not yet ready to include disabled individuals as part of their clientele mainly due to fear of possible poor return of borrowings and lower efficiency at work by disabled persons. Finally, a simple composite mean based on the individual indexes of public transport, healthcare, and economic empowerment support provisions was calculated to assess the level of overall access to these services. The results indicated that the levels of overall access by men and women with physical disabilities were 0.29 and 0.26, respectively. This clearly depicted the fact that the so-called inclusive rights-based services are not promoting equally the disability rights at the grassroots level in Pakistan. Therefore, in order to address the ongoing discriminatory and inadequate management practices at local levels, this study suggests that: awareness on disability rights and laws should be enhanced especially for the local duty bearers and rights holders; circumstantial equities must be incorporated in all services and development processes irrespective of the number of beneficiaries with and without disabilities; a mechanism for access audit should be put in place and carried out on a regular basis; and more importantly, the disabled persons should be given a mandatory representation in district assembly in order to give them the chance to influence the decision making processes. |
| Year | 2011 |
| Type | Dissertation |
| School | School of Environment, Resources, and Development (SERD) |
| Department | Department of Development and Sustainability (DDS) |
| Academic Program/FoS | Rural Development, Gender and Resources (RD) |
| Chairperson(s) | Ahmad, Mokbul Morshed |
| Examination Committee(s) | Routray, Jayant K. ;Doneys, Philippe ;Boyce, William Francis |
| Scholarship Donor(s) | Higher Education Commission (HEC), Pakistan - AIT Fellowship |
| Degree | Thesis (Ph.D.) - Asian Institute of Technology, 2011 |