Advocating for People with Disabilities
VSO Pakistan identified the rights of people with disabilities as a policy focus and helped to draft a Disability Act, known as the ‘Islamabad Capital Territory (ICT) Rights of Person with Disability Act,’ which would ensure the rights of people with disabilities through democratic, rights-based and inclusive legislation. This was the first law in the history of Pakistan to specifically protect the rights of people with disabilities, and its implementation has improved the lives of people with disabilities and allowed for their greater participation at all levels of society.
Volunteers and local partners are the key catalysts. VSO worked with Potohar Mental Health Association (PMHA), a disability rights-based organisation and its network members to lead coordination with other disability rights organisations and to mobilise national media on disability issues and needs in the country. The PMHA worked to coordinate national events involving the presence of representatives from government, political parties, civil society and primary actors. It also translated the draft disability bill into Urdu, so that primary actors were able to effectively participate and contribute during consultation meetings.
During five consultation meetings, each involving around 40 participants, primary actors — including marginalised women, youth, members of the transgender community, and people with disabilities — shared the issues, challenges, and stigma that they have faced in their communities, helping to form recommendations which would feed into the draft bill. To carry out the community consultations, VSO recruited two national volunteers and five community volunteers, who facilitated dialogues and worked to generate evidence and recommendations based on the perspectives and voices of primary actors. The national volunteers trained the community volunteers, and the engagement of community volunteers, with their links to local communities and shared cultural context, meant that the discussions were open and smooth, with local people feeling comfortable to share their issues and problems in the form of open dialogue.
Through various consultations, VSO Pakistan and its partners developed 23 policy recommendations, related to the political participation of persons living with disabilities, including equity in education, equality before law, ease of access and mobility, and protection from violence and discriminatory behaviour. Through lobbying and media mobilisation aimed at Parliamentarians, government actors, and political parties, VSO succeeded in getting 13 of these recommendations incorporated into the Act, via the mechanism of the Standing Committee on Human Rights National Assembly of Pakistan.
VSO Pakistan used evidence from its programmes, as well as recommendations from a series of community dialogues, to influence the development of a disability rights bill. In order to do this, VSO worked with PMHA and its network members to develop key messages and policy recommendations to influence the Disability Act. VSO worked closely with PMHA to translate the draft Disability Bill into Urdu and facilitated community dialogues in different communities across Pakistan to incorporate the views of groups including marginalised women, young people, transgender individuals and those with disabilities. These key policy recommendations were then submitted to the National Assembly of Pakistan for their inclusion in the Disability Act, and VSO facilitated a series of lobbying meetings and dialogues with resentatives from political parties, Parliament, and government, and organised media coverage to put pressure on politicians to include civil society recommendations in the Act.
