TALES OF THE DISABLED - Busaosowo Bisong Esq

TALES OF THE DISABLED


             BY                                                                              Busaosowo Bisong Esq
                                                                            +23409038632847
                                                                                              osowoodarunae@gmail.com




Global statistics show that there are over one billion people in the world today living with one form of disability or the other.  Out of this figure, the estimated number of children with disabilities between zero and eighteen years ranges between ninety-three and one hundred and fifty million. This disability could either be physical, oral, hearing, visual or intellectual. Medical sciences do not always have an explanation to give in some cases when disability occurs, as some are not traceable to any definite cause. The major causes of disability include poverty and malnutrition, diseases, accidents, wrong use and administration of drugs and injections and heredity.  With such a huge number of disabled people round the world, it is imperative that the lives of such persons become a global concern. The peculiarities they face vary from one region to another and are largely dependent on the society’s social and cultural orientation. In most countries, the first reaction people express when they see a disabled person is that of pity. In such countries, disability is seen as an abnormality. But the truth is that no disabled person wants to be seen this way because they are in no way social misfits. This reaction from the world outside the world of people living with disability impacts negatively on the disabled especially those who are young. A sense of helplessness and self-pity is what most societies communicate to their disabled people. This has led to the deplorable state of livelihood experienced by the disabled. Many of them are no longer sure of themselves and why they are on earth. Their dreams seem quashed and others dare not dream at all. Overdependence and begging on the streets appear a better alternative in these circumstances.
As disability awareness campaign and advocacy increases, governments of different nations have responded by creating special schools and vocational training centers for people with disability. In some of these schools, the deaf, blind, dumb, handicapped and intellectually impaired are assembled in one environment to acquire either educational or vocational skills. It is true that teaching persons with disability require special efforts and time, especially if such disability is an intellectual one. However, it is not always in the best interest of children with disability to cluster them in an isolated learning environment surrounded only with fellow disabled children. Under such arrangements, they are literally separated from the world without. One would wonder how they will be able to communicate with and understand persons without disability if they spend their childhood far apart from the very people they will frequently interact with outside those specialized schools. It will be more beneficial if they are allowed to receive their education alongside other students without disability, especially if the disability is only visual or physical. The result of this will be that they will grow up knowing that they are equal with everyone else. They will be less vulnerable to the feelings of inadequacy.
A healthy self-esteem is pivotal to the proper growth of any person. When this is lost at childhood, the harm it can cause at adolescence and adulthood cannot be measured. It was customary in some African nations to view disability and disabled people as a “curse”.  Disabled children were seen as an anathema in the family. Parents of such children considered themselves unlucky, unfortunate and unfavoured by God. In response to their feelings of frustration, the child is left to suffer in silence. The child is isolated from his peers and left alone many times during his childhood. With this kind of anti-social behaviour, children with disability grow with a wounded self-image. A child in such a community is made to believe at a tender age that it would have been better if he or she hadn’t been born. He withdraws from the society, peers and family to grow in isolation, unable to express himself in the latter years of his life. It is even more disastrous if the child is female. Growing up like this can trigger suicidal tendencies anywhere in the world. A survey conducted in 2007 for the third national survey of psychiatric morbidity of adults in England revealed that about 1 in every 150 adults in England had made an attempt to commit suicide in the past 12 months. Those with some forms of disability were four times more likely to have attempted suicide. Even though nothing can justify a person’s decision to take his life, it is important that we accept that it is our collective responsibility to make the world a better place for everyone born into it regardless of gender or form.
In order to expand our world to accommodate persons with disabilities, the following must be achieved: a global social reorientation, literacy and non-discrimination of persons living with disability in all its forms. The greatest challenge of a disabled person is the way he or she is perceived by the society. There is a longing in every human to be loved and accepted unconditionally. This feeling is not non-existent in disabled people. Most societies have not been able to fulfil this need.

Before now, in some parts of Nigeria, once a person is disabled, the culture is that such a man cannot be married to a woman who doesn’t have his kind of impairment. As a matter of fact, no non-disabled person ever wanted or accepted to be joined in holy matrimony with a disabled fellow. The way out for any disabled folk who wanted to raise a family was to be match-made by his parents with another person who has the same impairment. This cycle continued- the blind to the blind, deaf to deaf, mute to mute and physically challenged to physically challenged.  Thankfully, things are a bit better today in this respect. This explains why the likes of Cobham Asuquo who is a blind Nigerian artiste could get married to the love of his life who has no form of impairment and nobody is bothered. The global community must truly believe and demonstrate by their actions that disabled people are not subhuman. There is nothing unusual about disability. Anyone can be disabled. Parents must know that every child is a gift from God no matter the form or gender in which they come. It remains the duty of parents to love, instruct and bring up their children in the right mental regulation so that they can be useful to themselves and the world in general. Parents of children living with impairments should be on the frontline of campaigns demanding the rights and dignity of their children. It has been reported that children with disabilities are one of the most marginalized and excluded groups of children experiencing widespread rights violation. This shouldn’t be so.  The Convention on the Rights of the Child has clearly provided that children should never be discriminated against on grounds of disability, and advocates for the promotion of the enjoyment of life and exercise of independence to the greatest extent possible.
  Furthermore, no society has the right to discriminate against them owing to the fact that no one would prefer to live under any disability if he had a choice. They never orchestrated their disability and nothing should be done to suggest that they did otherwise. Even when a person has impairments, he is not disqualified from being a human being. He is still entitled to the best life can offer. He deserves good parenting, a balanced self-esteem, good education, equal social status and a level playing field where he can be all that he dreams to be.
Illiteracy is a common problem associated with people living with disability. It has been reported that children with disability record very low education enrolment rates. Even when these children attend school, they are more likely to drop out and leave school early without transitioning to secondary school and beyond. Unfortunately, they are also at a higher risk of school violence and bullying and this prevents the enjoyment of dignity and infringes their right to education. Situations like these account for the low participation of persons living with impairments in the developmental process of their nations. The importance of education can never be underrated.  Whether disabled or not, education is invaluable to anyone particularly in our age and time. The major constraint has been that in many societies, disabled person’s education is not considered paramount. People believe that disabled persons have nothing much to offer. But the lives of Thomas Edison and Helen Keller contradict such thinking.  Helen Keller contracted an illness at eighteen months called ‘Brain Fever’ which left her blind, deaf and mute, but she developed a limited way of communicating and created a basic form of sign language. Amidst her visible impairments, she grew to become a famous American educator, political activist and writer of many inspirational books.  Thomas Edison on his part became deaf in his early teenage years yet he is famous for the invention of the light bulb. It becomes glaringly obvious that a disabled person is not bereaved of talents and gifts.
If there will be any radical change in this

this area, countries must first recognize that the education of people living with disabilities is not a privilege given to them but a “right” guaranteed by law and secondly, that disabled people are neither useless nor burdens to any society. Under the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, State parties undertake to adopt immediate, effective and appropriate measures to protect the equal rights of children with disability in respect of inclusive education, family life and freedom from violence. A good education for a disabled person will highly reduce their unemployment rate. It will enhance both their social and economic security which will launch them into a world of limitless possibilities. Success stories of the likes of Nick Vujicic, Ralph Braun, Cobhams Asuquo, Sebenzile Matsebula are examples of what a person’s life can become when passion, education and a friendly environment meet. When these three factors are present anywhere, people are allowed to discover and pursue their dreams. The world needs more of these success stories. And the educational and the socio-economic empowerment of persons with disabilities are a great way of achieving this.


                                             




REFERENCES
1.  www.worldbank.org/en/topic/disability accessed on the 20th March, 2018
2. UNICEF Children and Young People with Disabilities Fact Sheet,2013.

3.  www.sciencedirect.com accessed on the 22nd March,2018

4. www.believersportal.com accessed on the 26th March,2018

5.  UNICEF Children and Young People with Disabilities Fact Sheet,2013.

6. Article 2 and 23 of The Convention on the Rights of the Child

7. GCE, Equal Right, Equal Opportunity Report,2014

8. Ibid

9. UNESCO, School Violence and Bullying: Global Status Report, 2016.

10. A. Schraff,  Helen Keller,(Saddleback Educational Publishing: 2008),p.4

11.  L. Sonneborn, The Electric Light: Thomas Edison’s Illuminating Invention (InfoBase Publishing:2007), p.18

12.   Articles 7, 8 and 9 of United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, 2006.