Forum focuses on empowerment of handicapped

Non-governmental organisations have appealed for more government and private sector support to strengthen programmes to empower disabled women.

Issues such as funds, tapping technological and economic resources and the implementation of a new law for the handicapped were the focus of a two-day forum on the plight of disabled women. There are an estimated 6,000 disabled only about 15 per cent are gainfully employed.

Handicapped women are in a worse situation than male counterparts, according to NGO representatives and academicians who attended the forum at Golden Tulip Hotel.

“The forum aimed to ensure that disabled women are involved in society,” said Dr. Dunya Ahmed Abdulla of the University of Bahrain and member of the Friendship Society for the Blind.

“We should tap available technology and provide them with wheelchairs, advanced hearing aids and laptops,” she said. Dr. Abdulla said the government should launch more projects to provide such women access to loans and livelihood.

She said majority of the jobless disabled were of an age to work. The forum was organised by the society, the Supreme Council for Women, the United Nations Development Programme, the Ministry of Social Development and the National Institute for Disabled.

The appeal for more support follows recommendations outlined by the more than 40 delegates who attended the forum. The participants called on the government to immediately activate the new law for the disabled, pointing out that Bahrain had signed UN conventions on the rights of the disabled. They called on specific institutions like the Bahrain Development Bank and the Ministry of Social Development to provide more funds and increase the allocation for the disabled.