In Bangladesh, various obstacles and stigmas surrounding disability are prevailing, which hamper the rights of the blind and other disabled people. Stigmas are the main hindrance to establishing rights of disabled people.
People, including parents of disabled children, lack awareness about the disability. Hence, disabled children are being deprived of an education, proper treatment, rehabilitation, and other necessary support.
Childhood visual impairment is a major public health problem in Bangladesh. According to Child Sight Foundation (CSF), there are several factors that contribute to childhood blindness. These are: Lack of information, lack of knowledge, proximity, economic constraint, illiteracy, wrong beliefs, wrong treatment, and unscientific interventions.
Information on child eye health and service provisions is yet to be disseminated on a mass scale. Due to the lack of necessary information, most of the time people do not know how to go about any problem.
The economic constraint is one of the major hindrances to accessing services. The cost of treating cataracts in children, for example, is much higher than it is for adults.
Cultural constructs surrounding blindness regard it as a divine curse, and these beliefs have gone to the point of no return. This leads to a withdrawal in care, making the child being perceived as an even greater burden.
Sometimes people take refuge in faith-healing and traditional healers, which lead to infections, and often, absolute blindness.
We should bring specialised services closer to the children who need them. Steps should be taken to help blind children in Bangladesh move from a life of dependence and isolation to a life of confidence and self-reliance.
Identifying blind children who are not currently enrolled in a special education school or an existing rehabilitation program is challenging. The stigma and prejudice surrounding them in Bangladesh often compels parents to keep their children at home, hidden from the public eye.
CSF partners with local community volunteers and trains them to become “key informants” to identify these children. Individuals, well-known within the community, including teachers, social workers, community leaders, and religious leaders are recruited to become key informants. Since 2001, over 15,000 children have been identified using this method.
Identified children are then referred for screening, examination, and treatment by an ophthalmologist.
Key informants distribute information about upcoming eye examination camps during their community rounds, and encourage parents to bring their children to the camp for examination.
Due to the lack of information, however, parents are sometimes hesitant to commit the time and energy necessary to rehabilitate their children. Families are often unaware of the capabilities of their visually impaired children, and may feel that their child is unable to contribute to regular operations of the household or participate in normal activities.
Many parents are afraid that their child will be ostracised or stigmatised in the community, and therefore prefer to keep them at home rather than send them to school. Furthermore, most parents do not know that national policies in Bangladesh require school to admit all children into classrooms, regardless of disability.
When parents have a blind child, they do not know how to teach or support the child, or if the child is able to work around the house, or go to school. As a result, the child often stays at home with nothing to do, not learning how to bathe or do other basic things. In reality, blind children are quite able to do these things.
We should work with parents to increase their knowledge, reassure them of their child’s abilities, and reinforce the message that blind children are fully able to participate in everyday life at home, school, and the surrounding community.
Forming close relationships and being accepted by other children in the community is vital to a visually impaired child’s self-esteem, educational progress, and success. To foster a smooth transition between home-based rehabilitative care and enrolment in the school system, CSF designed the Inclusive Children’s Club (ICC), a social and educational outlet that allows visually impaired and blind children to interact with their sighted peers in a positive and supportive environment.
The ICC cultivates a sense of belonging, reduces stigma and fear, and helps mainstream the child back into the community of children. Community children that attend the club learn about blindness, as well as other subjects such as history, art, and music.
There is a national policy in Bangladesh stating that disabled children have a fundamental right to education, and must be granted access to schools. But this policy has not been publicised enough.
We should reach further into the social network of the family and community, contacting neighbours and relatives, and inviting them to partake in the rehabilitative process as well. This creates a support circle around the child, increasing the probability of success.
Many teachers believe that blind children are incapable of learning in a classroom alongside their sighted peers. Teachers in Bangladesh are often not motivated to take the time to attend teachers’ training for children with disabilities.
We should work with teachers and school principals to change their attitudes and opinions about inclusive education by coordinating introductions to visually impaired students, teacher training, and information about national policies in Bangladesh on the rights of children.
Despite the fact that there is a national inclusive education policy in Bangladesh stating that the education system should admit all children regardless of ability, it is rarely enforced or communicated within the education system. Parents, district officials, and school administrators are often unaware that this policy exists.
We should work with all concerned to implement national disability laws within the education system. All rights bodies should emphasise on inclusive education as a basic right for all children regardless of their ability, and actively lobby the Department of Education to adopt this philosophy and move towards a more human rights-based approach.