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Saturday, 29 June 2013

'Encourage families to care for their disabled children' : Chennai


B Valarmathi, Minister for Social Welfare and Nutritious Meal Programme, releasing the UNICEF’s Annual state of the world’s children report. Also seen are Saraswathi Rangasamy, Chairperson of Tamil Nadu State Commission for Protection of Child rights, and Sathish Kumar, Chief, UNICEF office for Tamil Nadu and Kerala | EPS

B Valarmathi, Minister for Social Welfare and Nutritious Meal Programme, releasing the UNICEF’s Annual state of the world’s children report. Also seen are Saraswathi Rangasamy, Chairperson of Tamil Nadu State Commission for Protection of Child rights, and Sathish Kumar, Chief, UNICEF office for Tamil Nadu and Kerala




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Families should be preferred over institutions when it comes to taking care of disabled children, said Sathish Kumar, Chief of UNICEF, State office for Tamil Nadu and Kerala, during the release of the UNICEF’s Annual State of the World’s Children’s report.


“Families with disabled children must be given assistance to provide care for their children. If the child does not have  own parents, then relatives or foster parents must take their responsibility. Though there are a number of issues  that arise in such cases, they are much lower when compared to the ones that arise when these children are put in institutionalised care,” he said.


Sathish Kumar highlighted that the number of disabled persons reported in the census was grossly under-represented. “The census 2011 reports that the disabled account for 2.13 per cent of India’s population. But as per the world report on disability 2011, about 25 per cent of the people in India are disabled. Census must take into account the relevant parameters that can track the actual disability in the country,” he said. He added that since census is carried out on a largescale it might be difficult to track the accurate number of the disabled. It is up to the States and communities to take up surveys to identify the scale of the problem,” he said. The screening of newborn children for disability under the National Rural Health Mission is a step forward, he said.



The report says that children with disability, especially girls, face a greater risk of being poor, abandoned and stigmatised. Hence, society has a responsibility to provide an inclusive and enabling environment to the children, he pointed out.


Source : The New Indian Express , 29th June 2013


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