NEGLECT:

Neglect means wilful lack of care and attention. It is also referred to as (a) failure to do or carry out, as through carelessness or oversight and (b) failure to act with the prudence that a reasonable person would exercise under the same circumstances. It is also the trait of neglecting responsibilities and lacking concern.

Disabled people experiences neglect in many instances. Disabled children are neglected in education, play grounds, sports, leisure, love, support, health and decision making processes like selecting their own food or dress. Likewise disabled adults also suffer from neglect in the areas of employment, active participation in society, family life, health including reproductive health care and marriage, property rights, decision making process etc. Disabled people are often neglected of their material, financial, emotional requirements.

The following case study explains how a disabled person is neglected by his family:

Balan, a person with Cerebral Palsy, was studying in a special school in Chennai. He belonged to an upper middle class family. His siblings were doing professional courses.

His family used to leave him in a temple at their convenient time in the morning to take his school bus. After school hours, the school bus used to leave him back in the temple. He would wait for hours for his father to come and pick him up. The rest of the family members never bothered to support him. Many times people mistook him for a beggar on the streets. The only reason for the rest of his family members not supporting him was his disability. They didn’t want anybody in the society to know that Balan had disability.

This is a clear case of neglect of a disabled person by the family members. He was not treated with dignity, which is against the constitutional rights of Right to Life with Dignity.

ABUSE:

Abuse is a complex psycho-social problem that affects large number of adults as well as children throughout the world. Although abuse was first defined with regard to children when it first received sustained attention in the 1950s, clinical psychologists and researchers now recognize that adults can suffer abuse in a number of different circumstances.

Abuse refers to harmful or injurious treatment of another human being that may include physical, sexual, verbal, psychological/emotional, intellectual, or spiritual maltreatment. Abuse may coexist with neglect, which is defined as failure to meet a dependent person's basic physical and medical needs, emotional deprivation, and/or desertion. Neglect is sometimes described as passive abuse.

Physical abuse is the non-consensual infliction of pain and bodily harm to another and includes binding (eg. Tying, chaining, manacling, taping), burning (eg. Via cigarette, open flame, hot objects, forced exposure to sun, etc), hitting, striking, slapping, pushing, throwing things, expression of frustration, impatience, dislike, anger or fear, and imprisonment.

Verbal abuse include accusing, blaming, teasing / joking, manipulating, ridiculing, judgmental criticism, name calling and humiliating.

Sexual abuse refers to inappropriate sexual contact between a child or an adult and someone who has some kind of family or professional authority over them. Sexual abuse may include verbal remarks, fondling or kissing, or attempted or completed intercourse.

Emotional/psychological abuse covers a variety of behaviors that hurt or injure others. In fact, emotional abuse is a stronger predictor than physical abuse of the likelihood of suicide attempts in later life. Examples of emotional abuse are: destruction of someone's pet or valued possession, emotional blackmail - such as threatening to commit suicide unless the other person does what is wanted, shaming or humiliating someone in front of others.

Abuse has after effects on physical, neurobiological, cognitive, emotional, social and educational aspects.

Derogatory language is often used by media to refer to disabled people. For Example recently in one of the Tamil movies “Pollathavan,” terminologies like “Nondi” (crippled) is very often used to refer to a disabled person. Derogatory concepts like “disabled people are unfit to marry” etc, are conveyed by this movie.

DISCRIMINATION:

Discrimination is defined as unfair treatment of a person or group on the basis of prejudice. It is the failure to treat people in the same way because of bias due to some characteristics such as race, religion, sex, national origin, sexual orientation, disability – which is irrelevant.

 It leads to the denial of opportunities and equal rights to individuals and groups because of prejudice and other arbitrary reasons.

The following examples / case studies explain how discrimination is common in the lives of Disabled People.

Example of Ms. Shankari:

Ms. Shankari is a person with cerebral palsy. She is a post-graduate in Business Administration.

Mr. Bharathan, Shankari’s father, wanted to take a Group Insurance Policy for Ms. Shankari in her name. They applied for the same through State Bank of India. But the application was rejected by the Life Insurance Corporation, stating that Shankari cannot become a member of the Group Insurance Scheme due to her condition, Cerebral Palsy.

The list of diseases due to which a person cannot apply for the policy given in the application form does not include Cerebral Palsy and also Cerebral Palsy is a condition and not a disease like heart attack, cancer etc, which is mentioned in the application form.

Another incident in the life of Ms. Shankari is as follows:

When she was studying for post-graduation, she could not have used the services of a scribe while giving her exams as her speech is very unclear. She opted to write on her own but her handwriting is not very legible. Therefore every time she gives exams with the Madras University, she had to intervene and request for special evaluation. Few times she was given special correction.

She gave her final paper Business Techniques last April, which she failed. When she took the issue to the vice chancellor of Madras University with some suggestions for policy level changes, she did not get any reply from him.

This is a clear cut violation of the Constitutional Rights of Equal Opportunities and Social Security, the Persons with Disabilities Act 1995, which states equal opportunities and Full Participation and Reasonable accommodation as mentioned in the UNCRPD.

Ms. S. S. Smitha:

Ms. Smitha, Assistant Coordinator, Disability Legislation Unit, South – Vidya Sagar is a person with Multiple Sclerosis.

She is the Co-founder of Tejas, a self-advocacy group of disabled women. She represented disabled women in the 9th National Women’s Movement Conference held in Kolkata from the 9th to the 12th of September 2006.

Ms. Smitha took the Air Deccan flight from Kolkata to Chennai. She was travelling with her colleague who is also a disabled person. Due to the polished flooring and the distance in the airport, both of them opted for wheelchairs, which was chargeable.

Once they boarded the aircraft, the cabin crew wanted to seat them separately. Ms. Smitha questioned this and one of the crewmembers claimed it to be in line with the Civil Aviation rules. Smitha asked for the rules and the crew member replied that it was with the captain. When Smitha called the captain out asking for the rules, the captain not only refused to show the rules but also asked for a medical check up on Smitha and asked her to get down from the aircraft.

When we examined the rules later, nothing of that sort was mentioned in the rules.

Smitha made a representation to the CEO of Air Deccan. His reply was very vague and did not give any remedy to our client. Subsequently we filed a complaint in the District Consumer Court.

Ms. Ummul Khair:

Ummul Khair is a young girl with Cerebral Palsy. She is studying final year B.A. Sociology in one of the leading colleges in Chennai. Her friends and peers planned to go for a picnic. When Ummul wanted to be a part of the picnic, her friends and even her teachers were not for it. They felt that it would be very difficult to help Ummul handle the architectural barriers.