Editorial | Equality for persons with disabilities

In marking the International Day for Persons with Disabilities earlier this week, Pearnel Charles Jr, the labour and social security minister, stated a truism.

The days of discussing this subject, or the concerns of people with disabilities (PWDs), as some kind of side issue, should have long been behind Jamaica.

“All Jamaicans are required to be at full capacity, by removing barriers for us to appreciate and achieve national development,” Mr Charles said.

Unfortunately, as Mr Charles acknowledged, there is a wide gap between policy aspiration and reality on the ground, as was badly exposed by Hurricane Melissa, the Category 5 storm that wrecked Jamaica’s southern western parishes in October.

The hurricane severely damaged an estimated 157,000 homes, of which 24,000, or 15 per cent, are beyond repair. Over 900,000 people were affected, including around 30,000 who were internally displaced. More than a month after the hurricane, tens of thousands continue to live roughly.

There is no specific data on how many of Hurricane Melissa’s victims were people with disabilities, including the elderly. But it would be safe to assume that many were, if not in direct proportion to which they exist in the wider population in that part of the island.

“Just step back and imagine the difficulties that they (PWDs) are facing,” Minister Charles suggested to his audience at a forum discussing the issue. “This is an opportunity for us, as a nation, to embrace our … collective potential and make accessibility and inclusion more than catchphrases.”

TWO OBSERVATIONS

This newspaper fully agrees with Mr Charles, but makes two observations.

First, discerning people ought to have to dig into imaginations for images of the difficulties faced by PWDs prior to, and after, the storm.

There have been many media reports about the difficulties that people who are blind or suffer with mobility issues had in accessing government shelters as the storm approached. Many of these were schoolhouses that weren’t designed with the disabled in mind, and planning for people with disabilities appeared not to have been a major part of the preparedness exercise by the authorities. Accessing relief in the post-hurricane environment has been challenging for PWDs, media reports have also shown.

Second, the obligation of making “accessibility and inclusion more than a catchphrase” belongs, both in law and as a moral imperative, primarily to the Government, of which Mr Charles is a member.

In that regard, Minister Charles, who has portfolio responsibility in the Cabinet for disabilities issues, must work hard to ensure that “accessibility and inclusion” for people with disabilities is part of the Government’s means in its declarations about rebuilding with resilience from the hurricane.

Indeed, western Jamaica should become a model for the rest of Jamaica regarding what was contemplated by the Disabilities Act when it mandated that commercial and public buildings must be “readily accessible and usable to a person with disability”.

The Disabilities Act was passed in 2014. But it took more than seven years for its regulation to be written and approved, for it to come into operation in 2022.

LAGGED SEVERELY

The legislation, whose obligations also covers the government and its agencies, gave the owners and managers of public buildings two years to retrofit their premises to meet the legislative requirements. The anecdotal evidence, however, suggests that efforts have lagged severely on this front.

The reconstruction of western Jamaica, as Dr Christen Hendricks, the executive director of the Jamaica Council for Persons with Disabilities (JCPD), emphasised, provides an opportunity to accelerate the effort and to meet stipulations of the law.

“This moment must be the turning point where universal design becomes our standard, not an afterthought,” Dr Hendricks said.

However, building back with resilience for people with disabilities must be more than making their physical access to, and use of, public buildings easier.

It must be a full acknowledgement and embrace of the rights of people who live with disabilities as citizens of Jamaica.

Denworth Finnikin, former chairman of the advisory board of the JCPD, observed in a letter to this newspaper that PWDs face consistent barriers:“limited access to education and assistive devices; transportation challenges; workplace discrimination; and a lack of public awareness about disability rights”.

We concur.

Changing that existing paradigm, however, will require hard, consistent and focused effort. The passage of the Disabilities Act was a first step – a significant statement of intent.

Another important public policy move is the effort to get a good handle on how many PWDs there are in Jamaica in a special census being conducted by the Statistical Institute of Jamaica.

Estimates of PWDs have variously ranged between three per cent and six per cent of the population. However, the World Health Organization figures suggest that, in developing countries, between 15 per cent and 17 per cent of populations have some form of disability. Applied to Jamaica, that would mean that there could be 450,000 to half a million PWDs in the island. Yet, only 17,000 are registered with the JCPD.

Getting a credible figure is important for the structuring of public policy.

In the meantime, the western Jamaica reconstruction is an opportunity that should be grasped, including a broader focus on the issues addressed by Mr Finnikin.