Life with physical disabilities is tough for anyone and the struggle turns crueler when the whole family suffers from it. You will hardly find anyone to understand what the Zia Sheikh family in Faridpur is going through. Zia Sheikh, in his early 40s, is a hearing-impaired man lives with his seven-member family at Megmachi village in the district’s Madhupur upazila. Ironically, five of the family members, including Zia himself, his mother Rina khan, 60, his wife Arjina Begum, 37, and two of their children have physical disabilities. Read:Light in the abyss: Local engineers turn on GK Project's third main pump Rina Khan, Arjina Begum and their 6-year-old girl Yasmin suffer with hearing disability like Zia while their elder son Akash, 15, has mental and physical disability by birth. Zia’s other daughter, Helena, 14, and son Tamim, 8, are the only members in the family who are not suffering from any disability. Zia said his miseries started right after his birth as he was the youngest son of Karim Sheikh, a landless man in the village who had earned livelihood by begging. After his father’s death, Zia looked after his mother. One day he got married and started his own family but they have to live in a tin-roofed and clay-made room. Zia somehow supported the family working as a day-labourer and tending palm and coconut trees of their in his village and adjacent areas. Arjina also tried to help him working in a factory but she could not continue because of her illness. More sufferings hit the ill-fated family when Zia, the only breadwinner, got his spine broken as he fell from a palm tree. After taking a long treatment at Faridpur Bangabandhu Sheikh Medical College and Hospital, doctors said he needs a surgery to walk like before but Zia failed to manage the money for it. Zia now can walk only with the help of a stick. “Our only recourse is a 1300-sqf land we bought by selling a cow we had. And we had bought it with money provided by an NGO.”

There are a number of departments in the country working on demography but their information on the total number of people affected by disabilities widely varies making it hard for anyone to depend on, a workshop heard on Thursday. According to the 2011 national census, 1.4 per cent of the population has disabilities while a 2010 household survey conducted by the Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics (BBS) suggests the percentage is 9.6 and a similar survey in 2016 shows the rate at 6.94 per cent. Speakers at a consultation workshop held at the conference room of the National Economic Council (NEC) on Thursday highlighted the issue. General Economic Division (GED) of the Planning Commission, Center for Disability in Development (CDD) and Christian Blind Mission (CBM) jointly organized the workshop titled “Disability Intervention in the 8th Five-Year Plan”, according to a press release. Quoting the World Health Organization’s Global Report on Disabilities-2011, the keynote paper presented at the workshop said 15.6 per cent of people of the world are affected by disabilities, 80 per cent of whom live in developing countries. However, the ongoing disability detection survey by the Department of Social Services has identified 2,433,723 people with disabilities (PWDs) until December 8, 2021. Read: 16 Days of Activism: USAID workshop highlights empowering women journalists Planning Commission’s GED Member (Secretary) Dr Md Kawser Ahmed attended the event as the chief guest while the division’s Chief Md Mafidul Islam (Additional Secretary) presided over it.  CBM Country Director Muhammad Mushfiqul Wara, CDD Executive Director AHM Noman Khan, high officials of different government departments, and representatives of non-government organizations and organizations run by PWDs participated in the discussion. Referring to different surveys, the keynote paper said the lack of opportunities for PWDs for the flourishing of their talents and their inadequate access to employment are having a negative impact on the gross domestic product (GDP) of the country. According to a 2019 World Bank report, Bangladesh’s cost of disabilities is estimated at about 1.74 per cent of its GDP. Dr Md Kawser in his speech appreciated the proposals made by the discussants and laid emphasis on easy access of PWDs to everywhere in society. He suggested the inclusion of a chapter on disabilities in textbooks at the primary and secondary levels and teaching sign language to teachers for enhancing awareness about disabilities. Speakers said though the overall condition of the PWDs in Bangladesh has changed over the last two decades and the matter is being considered in the national development agenda, expected results regarding them have not been achieved yet. They said most of the PWDs in Bangladesh do not have required access to healthcare, education, employment, empowerment and socio-political activities. The speakers said PWDs are deprived of health services due to infrastructural barriers and service providers’ lack of skill. Problems in communications, lack of awareness at the society and family levels, lack of necessary instruments and lack of proper training of teachers have appeared as barriers to the inclusion of disabled children in education, they added. Several suggestions were made at the workshop. They include enhancing the participation of PWDs, particularly women, in the formulation and execution of development plans; building public facilities following universal construction rules to ensure PWDs’ easy access there; and making software and hardware at public-private initiatives to facilitate PWDs’ easy use of technology contents    

Allowances from the Ministry of Social Welfare under the Social Safety Net Program of the government will now easily reach the beneficiaries through bKash by G2P (Government to Person) system.

A total of 86 percent people with physical and leprosy disabilities in Bangladesh are directly involved in agriculture while income of 88 percent of farmers with disabilities has been reduced during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Sightsavers, a UK based International NGO, has called on Bangladesh government and the United Nations (UN) to vote for better diversity of representation on the committee that oversees the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD).

Sightsavers Bangladesh has launched a petition calling for the UN and the Bangladesh government to meet the needs of people with disabilities, the worst affected victims of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The UN Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) will meet in Geneva from March 9-27 to review the situation of persons with disabilities in six countries including Bangladesh.