Editorial

Discrimination against Women with Disabilities Ms Jeeja Ghosh, a faculty at Kolkatas Indian Institute of Cerebral Palsy and a frequent flier across the country and abroad, was offloaded from a SpiceJet flight from Kolkata to Goa on February 9, 2012, as the pilot felt she was not fit to fly. The next day, i.e., on February 20, 2012, in yet another instance of discrimination against disabled person, Ms Anjalee Agarwal, Executive Director of an NGO, suffering from Limb Girdle Muscular Dystrophy - a progressive neurological condition in which a person is unable to stand or move and is confined to a wheelchair, was denied a wheelchair to get off on a Jet Konnect flight from Delhi to Raipur and threatened to be bodily lifted by male loaders. These two incidents are grim reminders of the distance India still needs to travel in recognizing and respecting the human rights of disabled people, in general and those of women with disability in particular. If this could happen to Jeeja and Anjalee, who belong to an upwardly mobile Indian society, what is in store for a common woman with disability, one wonders. As per Census (2001) figures, women with disabilities constitute 42.457% of the total population of persons with disabilities in India. However, despite the numbers, their concerns continue to remain marginal in India. As a study conducted by Disability Rights Promotion International, a non-governmental organization that monitors rights of persons with disabilities around the world, has rightly pointed out, women with disabilities in India face triple discrimination of being female, being disabled and being poor. They are found to be powerless, isolated, anonymous and vulnerable to abuse and violence. The issue of social and psychosocial isolation is also very relevant to women and girls with disabilities in most countries, including India. It is still a common practice in many parts of India to lock women and girls with disabilities in the home, or to exclude them from the community. They have neither been espoused adequately by the feminist movement nor by the disability movement. Their voices remain largely unheard and the existing legal framework fails to address specific problems faced by women with disabilities. The Persons with Disabilities (Equal Opportunities, Protection of Rights and Full Participation) Act, 1995 (PWD Act) governs all issues of disability. But it is silent on the discrimination and violence faced by women that differentiates their situation from men with disabilities. Even otherwise, its implementation is slow and sporadic. In its present form, the legislation emphasises punitive measures for non-compliance rather than incentives for compliance. Disabled people have poor access to most places in the country due to environmental barriers. Of late, as a result of legislation and some court rulings, there are instances of improving accessibility in city centres and public transport systems. Awareness about barrier free environment and the technology needed to make the environment disabled-friendly, are limited. The Government is debating fresh legislation on persons with disabilities. A test of its commitment to guarantee basic rights and equal opportunities for this segment of the population will be whether it addresses these shortcomings. All those provisions in other statutes which deny equal rights to persons with disabilities, especially to girls and women with disabilities, should also be reviewed and amended. Ms Jeeja Ghosh could not fly the other day because India's disability law is up in the air. It is time to bring it down to earth, anchoring it firmly in the terrain of equality that our Constitution envisages for all citizens. Dr. Rakesh K Singh Editor

WOMENS LINK ISSN 2229-6409 Vol.18, No.2, April-June 2012