UN promotes efforts to integrate disabled persons into society

Marking the International Day of Disabled Persons, United Nations agencies today promoted efforts to further integrate people with disabilities into society.

A new report launched by the World Health Organization (WHO), entitled "Rethinking Care from the Perspective of Disabled People," offers personal testimonies of disabled people about their view of health care and what should be done to improve their quality of life.

According to the report, health and rehabilitation can no longer be understood solely in terms of medical interventions and conventional notions of "care," which narrowly focus on the limitations of disabled people rather than societies' inability to accommodate people of different needs and abilities.

The participants call for emergency services in crisis situations, such as wars and natural disasters, that are appropriate for disabled people. They also stress the need for anti-discrimination laws for the removal of environmental and cultural barriers for disabled people and underscore the provision of support services, including appropriate technical aids, interpreters for deaf people and personal assistance services.

Meanwhile, the UN Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) said in a statement that physical disabilities were also a cause of poverty and hunger, especially in rural areas where people were far from services and had very limited economic opportunities.

In a statement released at its Rome headquarters, FAO said that while hunger, malnutrition and poverty breed disabilities, disabled people continued to be marginalized. "They are not considered economically active and this leads them very often into the hunger trap," said Lawrence Jacobson, FAO Focal Point for Disability Matters.

Reducing the current figure of 600 million people with disabilities worldwide could be achieved by boosting food production, improving nutrition and integrating disabled people into sustainable rural development programmes, FAO said.

Two pilot projects in Thailand and Cambodia implemented by FAO were helping to enhance the skills of disabled farmers, integrate them into their communities, improve their incomes and regain their self-esteem, the agency said.

"These people have acquired the skills and means to lead better and more productive lives," Mr. Jacobson of the programme in Thailand. "They can stand on their own and, most important, they can teach other people within their community. This acquired ability to lead and to teach other people is an important aspect of the success of this project."