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Displaced and Disabled
October 24, 2008 | Katherine Southwick |
Up until this year, the needs of refugees and displaced persons with physical and mental disabilities have not been systematically analyzed. While humanitarian aid is generally about providing assistance to the most vulnerable – refugees, internally displaced people (IDPs), and stateless people who have no legal identity – ironically, the most vulnerable of these groups have been invisible in the course of humanitarian responses.
This summer, the Women's Commission for Refugee Women and Children published a report, Disabilities Among Refugees and Conflict-Affected Populations, and an accompanying Resource Kit for Field Workers, that are essential contributions to filling the void of assistance for displaced persons with disabilities. The findings reveal fundamental shortcomings as well as positive initiatives in certain cases.
According to the report, "one of the weakest aspects of all programs surveyed" concerned simply identifying the number and needs of displaced people with disabilities. This is especially challenging in urban settings, where refugees are often dispersed and undocumented, and the result is poor physical access to basic services. With difficulties accessing food distribution sites (which may have long, crowded lines), latrines, schools or other community facilities, refugees with disabilities experienced enhanced levels of isolation. In five IDP camps in West Darfur, over 20 percent of elderly people were not obtaining food rations. In response, HelpAge and the World Food Program began distributing supplementary food baskets to such people at risk of malnutrition and established a more accessible social center.
Information and services for people with mental disabilities were scarcer than they were for those with physical disabilities. More often, they were unregistered or excluded from assistance programs. In a predominantly Somali refugee camp in Kenya, children with mental disabilities were severely stigmatized, abandoned by their fathers and extended families, with their mothers concluding they had no choice but to tie up their children if they left the house. A local NGO in Sri Lanka, by contrast, has helped to integrate children with mental disabilities into community activities and promoted awareness and training among community groups.
The report suggests that at this stage, meeting the needs of people with disabilities is fragmented and ad hoc. The UN Refugee Agency’s (UNHCR) 1996 manual for assisting people with disabilities is outdated and UNHCR personnel are unaware of its existence. Other UNHCR approaches noted in the report are arguably too broad to bring to light sufficiently the number and needs of persons with disabilities. A handful of humanitarian organizations, such as Handicap International and World Vision, have either focused on persons with specific disabilities or sought to mainstream such needs into all programs.
At the macro level, the need for strengthening international commitment to displaced people with disabilities is clear. The Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities only entered into force this past May. On a hopeful note, it was negotiated in record time and had the largest number of state signatories of any treaty when it opened for signature in 2007. Perhaps because securing the rights and dignity of persons with disabilities is so long overdue, the issue actually has momentum. With the concrete recommendations of the Women’s Commission report, governments, UNHCR, and humanitarian groups should now have the means to carry that momentum forward.
--Katherine Southwick
This summer, the Women's Commission for Refugee Women and Children published a report, Disabilities Among Refugees and Conflict-Affected Populations, and an accompanying Resource Kit for Field Workers, that are essential contributions to filling the void of assistance for displaced persons with disabilities. The findings reveal fundamental shortcomings as well as positive initiatives in certain cases.
According to the report, "one of the weakest aspects of all programs surveyed" concerned simply identifying the number and needs of displaced people with disabilities. This is especially challenging in urban settings, where refugees are often dispersed and undocumented, and the result is poor physical access to basic services. With difficulties accessing food distribution sites (which may have long, crowded lines), latrines, schools or other community facilities, refugees with disabilities experienced enhanced levels of isolation. In five IDP camps in West Darfur, over 20 percent of elderly people were not obtaining food rations. In response, HelpAge and the World Food Program began distributing supplementary food baskets to such people at risk of malnutrition and established a more accessible social center.
Information and services for people with mental disabilities were scarcer than they were for those with physical disabilities. More often, they were unregistered or excluded from assistance programs. In a predominantly Somali refugee camp in Kenya, children with mental disabilities were severely stigmatized, abandoned by their fathers and extended families, with their mothers concluding they had no choice but to tie up their children if they left the house. A local NGO in Sri Lanka, by contrast, has helped to integrate children with mental disabilities into community activities and promoted awareness and training among community groups.
The report suggests that at this stage, meeting the needs of people with disabilities is fragmented and ad hoc. The UN Refugee Agency’s (UNHCR) 1996 manual for assisting people with disabilities is outdated and UNHCR personnel are unaware of its existence. Other UNHCR approaches noted in the report are arguably too broad to bring to light sufficiently the number and needs of persons with disabilities. A handful of humanitarian organizations, such as Handicap International and World Vision, have either focused on persons with specific disabilities or sought to mainstream such needs into all programs.
At the macro level, the need for strengthening international commitment to displaced people with disabilities is clear. The Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities only entered into force this past May. On a hopeful note, it was negotiated in record time and had the largest number of state signatories of any treaty when it opened for signature in 2007. Perhaps because securing the rights and dignity of persons with disabilities is so long overdue, the issue actually has momentum. With the concrete recommendations of the Women’s Commission report, governments, UNHCR, and humanitarian groups should now have the means to carry that momentum forward.
--Katherine Southwick
Labels: Health Care
