DHAKA, Aug 27, 2019 (BSS)- When compared to common people, Persons With Disabilities (PWD) face higher risks in emergency situations and are disproportionately affected by natural disasters. Mortality rate of the disabled population is also much higher than that of the non-disabled population in many disaster situations.
Fifteen-year-old Saim Rahman was born with physical disabilities, including hearing problem. He is used to live with his parents in city’s Mirpur-2 area. Once on a dreadful night, a fire broke out at his house as his parents were asleep. He became terrorized by sensing possible disaster and perplexed to understand what to do in such situation.
As tender Saim is sensing impending dire consequence to fall on them, suddenly the boy found his mother Salma awake and she had hurriedly been able to douse the blaze with the help of her husband. Not only Saim, many persons with disabilities and also their family members are unaware of how to get over the disasters and climate change as well.
Persons with disabilities are a unique resource of experience, which is often overlooked, that is needed to help reduce the risk of disasters and build resilient societies.
According to the National Taskforce on Disabilities-friendly Disaster Management Affairs, in May, 2018, a total 15,93,070 people with disabilities have been registered in Bangladesh. Of them, 4,33,000 are from 19 storm-prone districts across the country.
Experts focused on the need for inclusion of disabled people in disaster risk reduction and climate change adaptation. Apart from the government efforts, family members of disabled people should be prepared on how they can ensure assistances to their disabled family members during any disaster.
They also urged all private entrepreneurs to make their own DRR plan with inclusion of disabled people for their respective business entities.
Executive Director of Bangladesh Centre for Advanced Studies Dr Atiq Rahman said the persons with disabilities (PWD) should be included in policymaking process of disaster preparedness.
There are numerous examples that show that if they get the proper opportunities they can contribute to society like other persons, he said.
National Council for Disabled Women President Nasima Akhter said of the 17 SDGs, 13 are closely related with disability issues. “So to achieve SDG targets we have to mainstream PWDs”, she said.
“Besides providing training on various skills, we should also give PWDs orientation on DRR so that can face any type of disaster,” she said, adding, “To train PWDs on various skills, we need to provide them with psychosocial support to boost their confidence.”
Dr Atiq said, “If we can create a proper platform for PWDs, they can contribute immensely to the country. We need to work at the grassroots level to change perspectives of the families, communities and employers to create an inclusive society.”
He called for preparing a comprehensive database on persons with disabilities to integrate them into all policies to make an inclusive society.
“It’s a significant problem when we do not have data on the persons with disabilities– where they are living, how they are living and as well as what has happened to them afterwards and in addition how many more people have become disabled due to the experiences of disaster,” Dr Atiq said.
Bangladesh is the first country that held the first ever international conference on disability and DRM in line with the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction 2015-2030 (SFDRR) in 2015 and the Dhaka Declaration with eight goals.
The main objective of that conference is to share knowledge and experience and identify future actions for inclusive implementation of the Sendai Framework, its regional plans and the Dhaka Declaration 2015. It remains a big challenge to remove barriers that hinder persons with disabilities from fully participating in disaster risk reduction.
PWDs usually experience communication barriers during disasters due to lack of language interpreters.
Persons with disabilities are also not able to effectively participate in disaster management process.
Ensuring the inclusion of persons with disabilities in all aspects of disaster risk reduction can help develop better strategies and save lives in emergency situations.
It is needed to consult with persons with disabilities on how to make current DRR activities more responsive to their needs. They should be part of the whole process-from planning down to the implementation stages. The PWDs should be taught the necessary survival skills they can use during disasters.