The New Nation - Internet Edition

Staff Reporter

Educationists, disability experts and civil society representatives at a meeting in the city urged the government to give all civic facilities to intellectual and multiple disabled persons and give them opportunity to participate in all type of activities.

They also urged the Government to remove all discriminations in social behavioural patterns and change our negative mind set about them.

The rate of violence and sexual harassment against intellectual and multiple disabled women is higher than that of normal women, they said.

Intellectual disabled persons are being deprived of the rights of ownership in most cases. They are treated as 'sick' in the society, they added.

This was said at the meeting on 'Intellectual and Multiple Disabilities: Missing Agenda of Mainstream Development' organised by SEID Trust in support with ActionAid and Steps Towards Development (STD) at CIRDAP Auditorium yesterday.

Amzad Hossain, Director of Department of Social Services of the Ministry of Social Welfare, M Asafuddowlah, former secretary, Dr ASM Atiqur Rahman, Professor of Institute of Social Welfare and Research of Dhaka University, Khondokar Johurul Alam, President of NFOWD, Dr Gitiara Nasreen, Professor of Mass Communication and Journalism of Dhaka University, Rasheda K Chowdhury, Director of CAMPE, Sami Hafiz, Manager of Public Relation of HSBC, Dr Naim Ahmed, lawyer of Supreme Court, among others, spoke, while Ranjan Karmaker, Executive Director of STD, moderated the meeting. Dilara Satter Mitu, Director of SEID Trust, presented key-note paper.

Speakers said there is lack of scope for intellectual and multiple disabled persons to get legal rights in the society. They urged the government to take initiative for establishing legal rights for them.

They urged the government to stop all types of physical and mental harassment of them.

They also urged the government to include their legal rights in the state policy for their physical and mental development.

"If they get proper scopes and facilities, they could play a pivotal role as human resources in the society for the economic development of the country," said one of the speakers.

"It is unfortunate that in the medical science intellectual and multiple disabled persons are treated as 'mentally retarded,' which creates a bad impression on the society about their ability as a human being. But there is a lot of difference between physical disability and intellectual disability, " she said at the meeting.