Pakistan's ray of hope

As a child, disabled campaigner Ghulam Nabi Nizamani had to crawl over broken glass to get around. He’s now trying to persuade the government in Pakistan to set up a disability ministry to address such basic needs as wheelchair provision

I was born into a middle-class family in Sanghar, a town in a rural and remote area of south-east Pakistan’s Sindh province, near the Indian border. When I was ten months old, I contracted polio and became paralysed. I had to move around by crawling on barren, hot ground, often in temperatures of up to 45 degrees. I had to cope with broken glass, thorns, street dogs and burning cigarettes. To get to primary school, a servant would take me on his shoulders.

After finishing school at 16, my parents arranged my marriage and gave me a tricycle as a gift. This gave me some mobility to escape the previous boundaries of my environment.

After college, my parents decided they wanted me to join the family business as a clerk, because they didn’t think there was any point in my studying at university as a disabled person. But I didn’t give up and studied instead as an external student. I completed a masters in sociology and a masters in economics, both of which I funded myself. This allowed me to secure a paid job at the age of 29, on merit.

It wasn’t until I was 37 that I got my first wheelchair, which was made locally. It gave me more mobility and confidence. Like many other disabled people in Pakistan, I had thought that using a wheelchair would limit my movement because of the inaccessible environment. Now I tell other disabled people to use wheelchairs.

One problem is the unavailability of good quality wheelchairs. As 70 per cent of the population of Pakistan live in rural areas, there are many Ghulam Nabis waiting for such opportunities.

The disability movement in Pakistan really began in 1981 with the establishment of the Disabled People’s International (DPI) Pakistan. After some initial success it struggled to make progress because disability issues were dealt with by the government’s special education department which had a medical model perspective. I think, by contrast, that the department should only be responsible for the education of disabled people and that we need a disability ministry.

Progress has speeded up since 2002 thanks to the World Bank and also a programme in which three young disabled people (including myself) received training in Japan and then came back and worked for the disability movement.

Over the last year, however, political uncertainty in Pakistan has caused problems for our movement. Pakistan has not been a priority area for international development organisations and disabled people have been left behind compared with those in other countries. Disabled people’s organisations in Pakistan urgently need to build their capacity.

In March, the Commonwealth Foundation launched the Commonwealth Disabled Peoples’ Forum. This called for an emphasis on the mainstreaming of disability and for disability issues to be integrated into sustainable development strategies.

Disabled people from Pakistan hope the forum will provide a ray of hope. I am now the forum’s regional executive for south and south-east Asia. DPI Pakistan will work closely with the forum, making it the first direct link between Pakistani disabled people’s organisations and the West.

We hope these links will help people climb out of poverty, influence Pakistan to ratify and implement the UN Convention on the Rights of Person with Disabilities and aid the development process, as well as helping disabled people build their self-esteem in Pakistani society.