Social Development Division, United Nations ESCAP

Part 4 of 7

Education and Vocational Training

Throughout the Asian and Pacific region, public attitudes are changing regarding the value of educating and training women. The situation concerning women s education is improving within much of the region, and illiteracy rates among women have declined.14 However, little has changed in this respect for women with disabilities. The prejudice surrounding their ability and value continues to perpetuate the view that educating them is futile. Opportunities for girls with disabilities to receive an education or to attend training courses are available to only a few.

For example, the then International Council on Education of the Visually Handicapped estimated that only two per cent of visually-impaired children in developing countries receive any formal schooling.15 In China, where there are some 5 million disabled children aged between 7 and 15 years, only 6 per cent are enrolled in schools.16 It is reasonable to expect that the number of girls included in those estimates is significantly less than half. One report on women with disabilities in the Raichur district of Karnataka State, India, indicated that the literacy rate of such women was 7 per cent compared to a general literacy rate for the State of 46 per cent.17

Traditionally, schools for disabled children tend to be segregated institutions, most commonly for those with visual, hearing and intellectual impairments. Girls who have extensive physical disabilities therefore have even less opportunity for schooling. The few special schools that exist are concentrated in large cities. Although they usually have residential facilities, the residential system – as has been previously seen in the case of rehabilitation centres – discriminates against access by girls.

So long as education for people with disabilities is largely confined to a segregated system, few disabled girls and women will benefit. There is an urgent need to consider policies and programmes that will place greater emphasis on the participation of persons with disabilities in the mainstream education system. Certainly the challenges are great. Existing school buildings are usually not designed for easy access by those with physical disabilities. At the same time, there is an acute shortage of trained teachers, suitable teaching materials and text books in appropriate formats, and educational devices which meet the specific learning needs of persons with disabilities.

Evidence indicates that a predominantly segregated school system for disabled children is unlikely to be adequate and accessible for this group of children, and that it is also educationally inferior. A study of disabled girls, both in special (usually residential) schools and in regular schools, found that those in special schools were less proficient in basic literacy and numeracy skills, had lower expectations about their own capabilities and lacked confidence in social settings.18 Thus it is obvious that mainstreaming girls with disabilities into society must begin at school.

Education is the key to the advancement of women and girls with disabilities; it provides access to information, enables them to communicate their needs, interests and experiences, brings them into contact with other students, increases their confidence and encourages them to assert their rights. Without a basic education, their chances for employment are almost nil.

While the global trend is for greater gender equality in education and vocational training, boys and girls with the same disability often receive different kinds of education, with disabled girls often confined to the most traditional female occupations. One study suggests that girls with disabilities, as a consequence of sex-role stereotyping, develop limited, conventional views of what constitutes careers for men and women. This is a clear indication of their lack of awareness and understanding of the changes in perception brought about by the women s movement.

Employment

Women in general face discrimination in employment. For women with disabilities, this discrimination is far greater. In situations where there is high unemployment, opportunities for renumerative work tend to be severely limited. When disabled women do find jobs, they receive considerably lower wages. For example, even for an industrialized country, studies have shown that a disabled woman working full-time earns only 56 per cent of the salary of a full-time employed disabled man.19 In fact, disabled women earn the lowest wages compared to disabled men or non-disabled women.

Furthermore, in addition to the prejudice and discrimination barrier, the inaccessibility of the physical environment (e.g., buildings, roads, transport and toilet facilities) is a serious obstacle to disabled women working outside their homes. Since the lack of mobility limits disabled women from obtaining raw materials and marketing their products themselves, engaging in piece-work is the most common form of income-generation available to them. Examples of piece-work by disabled women and girls include labour-intensive and poorly paid activities such as weaving, sewing, basket-making, the assembling of toys and production of handicraft items. The materials are delivered to their homes and the finished products are collected by agents. There is no legal or social protection. Disabled women and girls may be exposed to unsafe materials and subjected to excessive hours of work under harsh conditions. Even where disabled women have jobs, their rights as workers may be overlooked. Faced with discrimination, little job mobility and few skills, disabled women workers may be forced to endure oppressive working conditions.

Despite the most optimistic outlook for change in employment opportunities for women with disabilities, the present reality is that the best hope for productive work may lie in self-employment, probably on a cooperative basis with others. While numerous projects exist which provide skills training for disabled women, they frequently fall short of meeting the ultimate goal of providing a means of adequate income.

A critical need remains for programmes such as credit schemes, entrepreneurial skills training and advisory services to include disabled women in the ESCAP region and to develop a niche in the market for the goods and services they can offer. For women with disabilities in rural communities, little attention has so far been given to developing options for productive and renumerative work, or the requisite training that would be appropriate for them.

Apart from economic independence, work is an essential means of enabling a person to develop a sense of identity and self-esteem. Thus gainful employment is an important means of promoting the social integration of disabled women. From the perspective of the State, investing in the education and training of women with disabilities, and promoting opportunities for their employment, is sound economic and social policy. Gainfully employed women with disabilities contribute actively to the economy.

Participation in Development

The potential contribution of disabled women to the economy and to society has not been given sufficient attention by policy-makers in the ESCAP region. While the specific nature of their contribution might be influenced by the nature of the disability, it has been suggested that coping with disability produces certain strengths in individuals. It may lead to the development of inner resilience, patience, perseverance and an ability to deal in a positive way with the vicissitudes of everyday life, thus shaping individuals who can benefit society.20 The fact is, however, that most women with disabilities have not had equal access to the opportunities they need to help them contribute to, and benefit from, development.

The two social movements – the women s movement and the self-help movement of people with disabilities – have so far had a limited impact on improving the quality of life of women with disabilities in the ESCAP region. For instance, although the Nairobi Forward-looking Strategies for the Advancement of Women to the Year 2000 have been instrumental in an overall improvement of the status of women, their impact has been insignificant for women with disabilities. The Forward-looking Strategies had identified disabled women as requiring "special concern".21 However, 10 years on, it is clear that insufficient attention has been given to their situation. An examination of 12 country reports from Asia and the Pacific on the status of women, which is to be submitted to the Fourth World Conference on Women to be held in September 1995, reveals that only one report makes any direct mention of women with disabilities. That one report admitted that "specific programmes for...disabled women...are not available at the moment. However, interventions in such areas are under active consideration."

In responses to a survey conducted by ESCAP for this publication, only one out of 16 replies from national focal points for women-in-development indicated that the concerns of women and girls with disabilities had been integrated into the overall policy for women in development. Policies and programmes for disabled women and girls are still too often thought of in terms of providing welfare services for them. There continues to be little recognition that they can be partners in development.

As for the self-help movement of people with disabilities in developing countries of the ESCAP region, its efforts to incorporate women s concerns into its agenda thus far have been too few and generally ineffective. Apart from a lack of resources for sustained action, there is also an apparent lack of strategic focus in the activities organized to promote the advancement of women with disabilities. Activities are frequently carried out for women with disabilities, without parallel efforts to increase their participation in decision-making related to those activities.

Greater efforts are needed to raise awareness among members of self-help organizations regarding the gender issue. In particular, disabled women members need to understand the gender perspectives of the problems they face, and to work towards their right to equal participation in the policy-making and management activities of such organizations.

The responses of self-help organizations in the region to the ESCAP questionnaire indicated that, in all cases where membership comprised both men and women with disabilities, women were significantly under-represented in the highest decision-making body of each of those organizations. Yet, in more than 70 per cent of the self-help organizations, a special committee existed for promoting the advancement of its women members and disabled women at large.

The end-result may be that women s concerns become marginalized, and not integrated into the central policy-making mechanism of the organization. This situation may be indicative of the poor awareness of gender issues among the male policy-makers who predominate in these organizations.

Part 5 of 7

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