Pacific still not inclusive for people with disability
An organisation representing people living with disabilities in the Pacific says a lot still needs to be done to create more inclusive societies in the region.
Transcript
An organisation representing people living with disabilities in the Pacific says a lot still needs to be done to create more inclusive societies in the region.
The Pacific Disability Forum says one in five people estimated to be living with some form of disability in the Pacific face many entrenched cultural and physical barriers to full participation.
Koroi Hawkins reports:
At least 16 countries in the region have signed or ratified the UN convention on the rights of persons with disabilities.
But Setareki Macanawai the chief executive of the Pacific Disability forum says there is still a lack of action on the ground.
Think most of, if not all of the Pacific Island countries have now got a disability policy. It is the translation of those policies into practice, is often lacking and the allocation of budgetary resources to implement those policies to really be targeted to benefit persons with disabilities.
The theme for this year's World Disability Day, held last week, was Inclusion Matters, but the President of Tonga's National Visual Impairment Organisation, Ofeina Leka, says exclusion is a more accurate description in Tonga.
We are behind from the rest of the Pacific region in the areas of like braille and other skills for the visual impairment we don't have much here. Actually what we think for all our disabilities here they have the same answer that is to ratify our convention in our government here in Tonga. So that we may have a opportunity to have a better life here in Tonga.
People with disabilities in the Pacific face a lack of access to basic services like health and education and few chances of employment and social and political participation.
This is made worse by entrenched cultural stigma often from people within their own families and communities.
Nelly Caleb of the Vanuatu Disability Promotions and Advocacy Association says a lot of the discrimination comes down to ignorance.
They thought that people with disabilities have different rights, they also thought that people with disabilities are just kept at home and are not to go to school or even socialise themselves. And they call them by their disabilities for example one leg or something. And it discourages our members to come out from their community.
Ms Caleb believes educating communities is crucial.
We need more awareness in communities, in the province and even in the national level and in the region. Because most of our, like most of the communities and even the province, national they don't know what disability is.
Although the realities of living with a disability in the Pacific are quite bleak, Setareki Macanawai from the Pacific Disability Forum says he remains optimistic.
For people with disabilities to participate, to go to school to be educated to get a job, to be able to put food on the table for their families to be able to get married and to go to church. To participate in our, in political life, in voting. The inclusion of persons with disabilities really, really matters if we were to have a society embraces everyone and leaving no one behind.
International agencies say only one child out of ten living disability in the Asia Pacific region receives schooling or employment.
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