T

he National Coalition of People with Disabilities has called on the House of Representatives to revise the current draft of a bill on disabled persons before deliberations start in June, arguing that the bill limits disabled persons'€™ rights as citizens.

Chairperson of Indonesian Association of Visually Impaired People (Pertuni), Ariani Indrawati, said the coalition had proposed to the House a comprehensive draft bill consisting of 265 articles detailing the specific needs of people with disabilities, but that House Commission VIII, which oversees religion, social affairs and women'€™s empowerment, ignored the proposal and went ahead with its own version of the bill, with 106 articles focused mainly on charity-based programs.

Ariani said that people with disabilities had the same rights as all citizens to education, information, welfare and protection from the state. Thus, their needs need to be discussed by all House commissions, not just Commission VIII, which is working with the Social Affairs Ministry to draft the bill.

'€œWe want a human-rights-based law to protect people with disabilities. If the current bill is passed into law then it will become a welfare-based law that sees persons with disabilities as people who should be given only charity. It denies the fact that they also have the same rights as other citizens,'€ Ariani told The Jakarta Post on Sunday.

Ariani said the coalition, which consists of several NGOs, including Pertuni, would soon meet with the House to replace its version of the draft bill with the one proposed by the coalition.

The bill is slated to be passed into law in Dec. 3, when several countries, including Indonesia, will celebrate International Day of People with Disabilities.

'€œIn our proposed draft bill, we, for example, elaborated on how law enforcement institutions should conduct questioning when collecting testimony from persons with impaired hearing. This is completely different from the current [version of the draft] bill, which only focuses on giving charity to disabled persons,'€ Ariani said.

'€œWe also gave detailed explanations on the need for education among disabled persons. We explained who should attend special-needs schools and who should attend regular schools and universities. This is something that Commission VIII and the Social Affairs Ministry know nothing about, because such matters are handled by Commission X on education,'€ Ariani added.

On Friday, Social Affairs Minister Khofifah said the bill on disabled persons was aimed at ensuring equal access to people with disabilities.

'€œThis is important because all government offices at every level should undertake development planning in consideration of those with special needs,'€ the minister said.

Khofifah added that her office was currently establishing communications with other state institutions to produce special cards that would provide easier access to government services currently out of reach for many disabled persons. In 2011, the House ratified the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, in what was seen as an important step in improving the welfare of disabled persons.

The convention stipulates, among other things, that the state should take measures to protect persons with disabilities from inhuman or degrading treatment, to ensure personal mobility and to prohibit discrimination in the workplace.

According to data from the UN, there are more than 1 billion persons with disabilities across the globe, accounting for some 15 percent of the world'€™s population, with the majority living in developing countries, including Indonesia.