Sindh moved a step ahead of the other three provinces nine months ago when the provincial assembly passed the Sindh Differently Abled Persons (Employment, Rehabilitation and Welfare) Act 2014. However, the law has not been implemented; officials have conceded that the rules and regulations required to make the law effective have not been put in place. The Sindh law replaces a 1981 federal law establishing a two percent quota for the disabled or differently-abled in government departments and organisations employing more than 25 persons. That requirement has never been met, and even after the new provincial law does not appear to go beyond words written on plain paper. Pakistan’s poor record on handling disability should have been a topic of nationwide concern on International Disability Day, observed across the world on December 3. Instead disability remains a stigma in our part of the world, where many families continue to hide it and three out of four provinces having no law to provide assistance to the disabled. According to official figures 2.5 percent of our population is disabled. The figure seems low given that globally two billion people live with disability of one kind or the other. A comprehensive survey to determine the number of differently-abled people in our country – and what kind of disability they suffer – has never been undertaken in any scientific manner. None of the other three provinces have implemented or enacted a law aimed at enabling the disabled to move into the mainstream of society. In fact, at the end of 2014, as blind people protested the lack of action on International Disability Day, the Punjab police reacted by launching a baton attack on them in Lahore rather than at least hearing their grievances. Across the world, disabled or differently-abled people are able to live full lives and contribute to society in all kinds of ways. In our own country, we have a fledgling movement for the rights of the disabled led by persons willing to come forward and raise their voice for the cause. But their number is very low. We badly need the governments to help out by, at the very least, putting in place laws and then figuring out how to enforce them.
