Asian Para Games Brings Disability Rights in Indonesia Into Focus JAKARTA â" Indonesiaâs capital hosted the third-ever Asian Para G...
JAKARTA â"
Indonesiaâs capital hosted the third-ever Asian Para Games this month with the theme âThe Inspiring Spirit and Energy of Asia,â aiming to promote awareness and empowerment for people with disabilities. But while recent years have seen some progress when it comes to disability rights, activists say the country still has a long way to go.
According to Indonesiaâs 2016 National Labor Force Survey, some 12.15 percent of the population reported to be living with a disability â" representing some 23 million people. The government introduced the first national People with Disabilities Act in 2016, which importantly shifted the countryâs approach from one of charity to a rights-based one emphasizing empowerment.
Late last year, 14 city mayors signed the Charter of the Network of Indonesian Mayors for Inclusive Cities in Indonesia, aimed at better supporting pa rticipation of people with disabilities in all aspects of life in the archipelagoâs urban centers. âThe sidewalks in Indonesia theyâre so, so bad so a wheelchair cannot use it,â said Slamet Thohari, head of the Center for Disability Studies and Services at Brawijaya University in Malang.
Brawijaya is the first higher education institution in Indonesia with an affirmative action policy to provide places, scholarship and support for people with disabilities.
Sport and inclusion
âDuring this October, accessibility in Jakarta continues to be improved through the Bebas Batas (Boundary Free) Art Festival at the National Gallery and through sport with the Asian Para Games,â said Annisa Rahmania, a Deaf activist who works with Jakarta Barrier Free Tourism to promote accessible travel and public awareness of disability rights.
At the closing ceremony of the Games, the Asian Paralympic Committeeâs President Majid Rashed praised Indo nesia and proclaimed that it was âthe best Asian Para Gamesâ to date. Nevertheless, the head of Indonesiaâs Federation of Disabled Persons, Mahmud Fasa, publicly criticized the organizing committee for repeatedly using the outdated Indonesian term âdifabelâ to refer to people with disabilities rather than âdisabilitasâ. Indonesiaâs mens para swimming team was unable to compete because their coach forgot to register them for competition.
Thohari, who himself is in a wheelchair, said many venues for the Jakarta Games were inadequately accessible for people with disabilities and that disability awareness among volunteers for the Games was also lacking. âWhen I was there then I asked to the volunteer, âdo you know the way to the accessible toilet?â, the volunteer doesnât know,â he said.
âPeople with disabilities should have been involved since the beginning with planning, process until evaluation,â Rahmania told VOA via WhatsApp message.
âIf you are working with a disabilities program ⦠without people with disabilities, itâs nonsense,â said Thohari. âNothing about us, without us.â
Invisible, in chains
Stigma around disability and mental illness is âpunishingâ, meaning that people with disabilities are often âinvisible in Indonesian society,â said Kriti Sharma, a researcher with Human Rights Watchâs (HRW) disability rights program. âThey stay at home, they do not go out much.â
Earlier this month, HRW released a report which showed that while there has been progress in combating the practice, thousands of mentally ill Indonesians remained shackled. Formally banned in 1977, at least 12,800 Indonesians with psychosocial disabilities remained locked up or chained as of July 2018.
Sharma told VOA that âas soon as there was a lack of mental health services, families resorted to shackling because they struggled and felt they had no option.â She at tributes lower rates in recent years to a âsemi-revolutionaryâ government program, which entails training grassroots workers to collect data, providing counseling and medication, and ârescuing people from chains.â It has already reached 16.2 million households.
Getting into work
Survey data from 2015 showed that one in five people with disabilities reported never having gone to school, while less than half said they were working. According to Tendy Gunawan, a program officer for disability inclusion with the International Labor Organization (ILO) in Jakarta, âa majority of the work done [by people with disabilities] is informal and there is quite a large gap, for example, in terms of salary. Access to transport is one obstacle for people with disabilities to participate in the labor market.â
âSo many people are jobless⦠why? Because not many factories, not many industries ⦠want to hire them,â said Thohari. âBy promoting ac cess to employment, of course, we can increase the wider communityâs awareness of people with disabilities, who are often forgotten,â Gunawan added.
âThe Indonesian government needs to have awareness raising campaigns and educate the public on disability and mental health,â said Sharma. âThe government has taken a very promising step by integrating mental health into primary services. While thatâs crucial, itâs not enough to tackle the stigma and eliminate practices like shackling.â
âThey still regarded that Iâm incomplete,â said Thohari. âI donât see that my disability is a deficiency, itâs just my difference.â
Source: Google News Indonesia | Netizen 24 Indonesia
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