Bangladesh ratified the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) with huge enthusiasm, becoming one of the first few countries to be parties to the international statute for the protection and promotion of the rights of persons with disabilities (PWDs). Demonstrating its commitment to this group of people, the country enacted a law -- Disability Welfare Act (DWA) (2001), also known as Bangladesh Protibondhi Kollyan Ain (BPKA) -- more than five years before the United Nations adopted the convention in December, 2006. Through the Disability Welfare Act, the rights of PWDs received statutory recognition for the first time in the history of Bangladesh. However, the enthusiasm Bangladesh demonstrated did not take much time to subside. The ground situation now shows how reluctant we are as a nation to protect and promote the rights of PWDs.
The UN Convention specified a number of rights of PWDs making their protection obligatory for the signatories. It requires the signatories to ensure and promote the full realisation of all human rights and fundamental freedoms for all PWDs without discrimination of any kind on the basis of disability. Today, we will examine the situation relating to one of their rights -- personal mobility -- specified in Article 20 of the convention. The article provides that "States Parties shall take effective measures to ensure personal mobility with the greatest possible independence for persons with disabilities…"
Along with many other things, roads should be accessible to everyone, designed and equipped to make it easier particularly for visually impaired people and persons with physical disabilities, to find their way around and travel safely for facilitating their mobility. This means incorporating ramps, wide footpaths and smooth surfaces for people who use wheelchairs, tactile paving, visual system, etc for visually impaired people, and safe pedestrian crossings for both the groups.
Now let's look at the road and pavement condition in Bangladesh. We know for sure that you will not find any road and pavement in capital Dhaka incorporating these facilities. Rather you will find a number of housing projects approved by the capital development regulatory authorities where roads lack usable footpaths. An extreme example in this regard is Niketon House Area where the widest roads have no footpaths on one side and narrow footpaths on the other side which is occupied by electric poles and trees, leaving no room for movement of those who use wheelchairs or walk with the help of white cane. Many city buildings, including government buildings and facilities, lack ramps necessary to facilitate wheelchair movement. The situation outside Dhaka is worse. It is because we are extremely disabled-insensitive as a society.
For the necessary mobility of the persons with disabilities, we need to ensure that our roads, buildings and other facilities have ramps where necessary, footpaths are wide, their surfaces are smooth and they have tactile paving, and pedestrian crossings are safe. Besides, road signs, markings and surrounding information should be designed clearly and legibly, and signs should be positioned in easily visible and accessible locations and at appropriate heights to ensure easy readability by pedestrians, including those using wheelchairs. Another thing is very important - installation of chirping bells at road crossings. We also need to make traffic lights or chirping bells lengthier as they lessen the chance of accidents involving PWD at crossings.
If we cannot ensure all these for people with disabilities, our ratification of the UN Convention on PWDs and enactment of national legislation will yield no results and there will be no change in the condition of PWDs.
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