New Nepal builds new hope

For centuries, Nepal has ignored disabled people. Activist Shudarson Subedi hopes rights can be built in from the ground up in the world’s newest democracy

There is no accurate current data on the prevelance of disability in Nepal and the statistics that are available do not reflect the range of disabilities.

In particular, mental illness in Nepal is still not appropriately categorised and many mentally ill people are sent to prison.

Historically, disability movements have only been present in Nepal for the past 40 years and for about 26 years only four organisations existed.

This was largely due to the strict rules surrounding the setting up and running of organisations that needed authority from the royal palace.

After the restoration of democracy in 1991, non-government organisations mushroomed. Strength of pressure from Nepal’s disability movement began to raise awareness and make disabled people and our issues more visible.

Today there are positive initiatives in place for the development of disabled people’s rights. The government of Nepal and national and international disability organisations are working in the field and there are now major advances in special education, inclusive education, advocacy aware-ness and human rights, even though most of the programmes are only limited to urban areas.

A major concern in Nepal is that disability is still not recognised as part of the development agenda and mainstreaming process.

National, international, government and non-government organisations are focusing on poor and marginalised communities such as women and lower-caste ethnicity minority groups, but very few organisations include disability issues in their policies.

The majority of Nepalese society believes that having disabled children is the result of a past fault or a punishment [for something] in a previous life. Parents feel severely burdened by having disabled children and prefer to send their children to an orphanage rather than keep them. The majority of disabled people are also excluded from primary-level education and health care, mainly due to the cost of treatment.

To overcome these problems, Nepal has developed special policies and legislation for disabled people, but sadly most of the provisions are not being implemented
and even within the provisions there remain discriminatory practices.

For example, in January 2008 the Nepal government signed up to the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, but it has yet to ratify it.

Nepal has been restructuring its political system and in April the first members of the new Constituent Assembly were elected, following a peace agreement that ended 10 years of armed revolution in 2006.

After nearly 250 years, the rule of monarchy in Nepal has ended. Disabled people have played a key role and political parties have finally included disabled people’s issues in their manifestos for the assembly.

However, only two disabled people were elected as an assembly member and one was nominated by the cabinet, from a total of 601.

But as a disability and human rights defender and being physically challenged myself, I am optimistic for the future.

• Shudarson Subedi is founder and president of the Nepal Disabled Human Rights Center, which is a partner organisation of the charity Disability and Development Partners