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Status of Children With Disabilities

By Lili Gomes @_roselili

As per UN Enable, about ten percent of the population in world, i.e. 650 million people, are disabled people. Girls and women with disabilities are especially at a risk of ill-treatment. According to the survey of UNICEF, thirty percent of street children live with disabilities. Some of the countries where IMR rates are quite high, the rates for mortality for disabled children are as high as eighty percent. Some also suspect that disabled youths are being weeded out purposely. Ninety percent of disabled children do not attend school all over the world. Conflict areas find that for every child who is killed, 3 are injured & disabled permanently. Disabled children are more at risk of being subjected to some kind of violence.

As per CRIN, over one hundred fifty million children are disabled all over the world. Fifty percent of children with hearing impairment & sixty percent of those with intellectual impairment are abused sexually. There are also several medical professionals who kill these disabled children. Ninety percent of these children after all will not survive pass 20 years of age. Children with disabilities also face discrimination in services. As an NGO for persons with disabilities in India, Asha Bhavan Centre provides vocational training to children with disabilities who are above 14 years of age for entrepreneurship development.

In India, children with disabilities comes mainly under the purview of Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment. However, there are some issues, which are dealt by Health Ministry as well. Since no single ministry is assigned with protecting these disabled children in India we can get various data about occurrence of children with disabilities. 1.67% of 0-19 population is disabled. 35.29% of all disabled people are children. Some other estimates say that the country has about twelve million children with disabilities. Only one percent of disabled children have access to school and 1/3rd of disabilities can be prevented. Under nutrition is even a severe problem with children suffering from cerebral palsy. Many registered non-for-profit organisations in India have taken the initiative to provide nutritional supplementation support to children who are suffering from malnutrition in order to bring them out of danger, and are imparting special education to special children who are suffering from autism, mental retardation, hearing impairment and multiple disabilities. For instance, Asha Bhavan Centre, a registered NGO, has a home for children with disabilities in India where they have 300 children living there.

These registered NGO’s have also taken the initiative to provide rural education in India by:

  • providing specialised coaching to children from marginalised community who are attending schools

  • motivating children who have never attended schools or are drop outs into mainstream education

  • making the community and families aware on the need for investing in the education of their child.