Accessable to All : Nepal

Amrita Gyawali, a BA third year student at Tri-Chandra Campus, doesn’t appear too excited about the upcoming Constituent Assembly (CA) elections, scheduled for November 19.





Gyawali, 23, suffers a physical impairment, and has long been advocating for the rights of the disabled. But aside from the many difficulties she and others like her encounter on a daily basis, the elections pose a wholly different challenge, she says. This is why Gyawali, who has never voted before, admits she hasn’t registered herself on the voter roll and isn’t sure she will actually go to the polling booths. “It’s not an encouraging environment at all,” she says warily.

This is a sentiment reiterated by most people with disabilities, who say the polling process in Nepal doesn’t take into account their special needs, and is therefore more or less inaccessible to the physically-challenged.


Some progress, however, was made in the last CA elections, in 2008, when for the first time, the visually-impaired were allowed to be accompanied by a person of their choice to help them cast their votes. To confirm, the booth inspector would cross-check the ballot. Prior to this, the visually-impaired would have to rely solely on the inspector and would usually have no way of knowing if their vote had been cast right.


“It was a landmark decision,” says Birendra Pokharel, former president of the National Federation of the Disabled-Nepal (NFDN), who himself is visually-impaired. “It served to lessen our detachment from the election process.”


But he adds, “Of course, there’s a long way to go to make it all more inclusive for people with various kinds of disability.”


 With the country once more in the grips of election fever, many groups and communities have already put forth assertive bids for their rights and inclusion in the constitution-writing process. But for those living with disability, the challenges comprise another dimension, whether owing to unfriendly infrastructure, low levels of awareness and voter education, or the country’s geography itself.


The relative negligence on the part of the government and other stakeholders in addressing the issue of access for the disabled is surprising given the substantial size of the disabled population. The NFDN claims that around 30 million people in Nepal are living with some kind of disability—over 90 percent of which lives below the poverty line—substantiated by reports by the World Health Organization, which projects that an average of 15 percent of people in the developing world is living with some sort of disability. This figure is, however, much higher than the government’s official estimate of the disabled as comprising 1.94 percent of Nepal’s total population.


“If we assume around 60 percent of the total disabled population is eligible to vote, and include their families, they could have a real decisive impact on the result of elections,” says Pokharel. But, he adds, if the government continues to pay no heed to accommodating this group—one with an already-high abstinence record during elections—it seems very likely that they will be alienated this time as well.


NFDN President Sudarshan Subedi says the government must provide minimum infrastructure like disabled-friendly booths, ramps, electronic ballot paper, ballot paper in Braille for the blind, and translation services into sign language for the deaf, to name a few. It would also be a good idea to bring in fast-track voting facilities and transportation services for the disabled, sick and elderly. Imparting electoral education to those suffering disabilities, in the language of their use, is another necessary concern, according to Subedi. “We understand it’s beyond the government’s resources to provide everything, but it could at least attempt what is affordable,” he says.


Subedi says the federation hopes the upcoming election will also address another of the community’s most pressing concerns besides ensuring disabled-friendly polls—proportional and direct representation of the disabled in the next CA.


Since the National Population Census 2001 had shown the disabled to occupy less than one percent of the country’s total population, hearing-impaired Raghab Bir Joshi was the only representative of the disabled in the previous CA.  The directives back then had not made it mandatory for parties to ensure proportional seats to groups comprising less than one percent of the total population.


Acknowledging that the gaining of political rights is key to being assured other rights, the federation is preparing to exert pressure on the government and political parties, and will lobby to have their concerns incorporated into party manifestoes.


 “We believe political rights will open the way for social, cultural and economic rights,” said Subedi.


The disabled community has also drawn the attention of the Election Commission (EC), which had initiated some reformatory moves since the last CA elections to encourage more participation of the disabled in the polls, and says it is working to resolve the remaining problems. The representatives of the disabled have met with the Chief Election Commissioner Neel Kanth Uprety time and again demanding the creation of a disable-friendly environment in the upcoming polls.  The EC, on its part, is planning to develop election education material in Braille and disseminate election-related messages through sign language “We’re doing the best we can,” says Komal Dhamala, executive director at the Electoral Education and Information Centre under the EC.


According to Dhamala, the EC has prioritised four major measures—inserting Braille in the Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs), telecasting election education through sign language, installing easily-accessible ballot boxes in various places and putting separate ballot box for the disabled in the polling stations. The EC is also planning to set up ramps in 50 polling stations of the total 10,000 to help wheel-chair users. Dhamala admits that despite their willingness, the EC does suffer from lack of extensive resources and cannot afford to spend too thriftily. Mere construction of ramps at polling stations, for example, “wouldn’t make sense” unless road connectivity is made available first everywhere in the country, he says.


It is certainly encouraging to see various electoral reforms being considered, if not immediately implemented, but many, like Pokharel and Gyawali, say they don’t want to get their hopes up until these actually materialise. Besides, as Pokharel has emphasised, it is not enough to offer access to one group of disabled folks, while still alienating others—it has to extend to everyone, irrespective of their physical impairment. Only then can these would-be voters be brought into the election process, and able to exert their say—as all citizens should—in the country’s political trajectory.



Source : e-kantipur , 21st June 2013