Level playing field for persons with disabilities: Employers Federation and Sightsavers join hands

KARACHI: Employers Federation of Pakistan (EFP) and Sightsavers - an International Non-Governmental Organization have joined hands by signing an LoU for promoting inclusion and decent work for persons with disabilities, especially in the corporate sector of the country.

The event, ‘Employers’ Consultation on establishing Pakistan Business and Disability Network (PBDN) and LoU signing ceremony for promoting inclusion and decent work for persons with disabilities was held here at a local hotel on Thursday night. President EFP, Ismail Suttar said that decent working environment cannot be ensured unless we provide level playing field for every segment of the society including people with disabilities.

“This LoU signing initiative is good, but we must do something very practical and tangible for the differently able people,” he said.

Suttar said in the last 75 years, we have not been able to give people with disabilities their due rights in the marketplace. For the corporate access, he asked the concerned departments of the EFP and Sightsavers to make a well-thought-out plan, conduct market analysis, identify sectors that can absorb the people with disabilities, and design crash courses so that their induction could be made possible in different employment sectors.

Pakistan Business and Disability Network is going to be launched in mid of January 2023. While giving introduction of Establishing PBDN, Syeda Munazza Gillani Country Director Sightsavers said the network will support private and public organizations to be disability inclusive both in practices and policy in the country.

She said this project will create and lead a network of organizations committed to promoting the value people with disability add to business. It will serve as a knowledge and resources hub for disability inclusion in the workplace in Pakistan.

She said 70 percent of the organization members of this network shall be from private sector, 20 members from people with disabilities, and remaining 10 percent will be from development partners and international NGOs.

She said her organization fights for the rights of young people go to school, avail jobs in marketplace etc. She also highlighted disparities in different surveys and studies conducted on ‘working age population’ in Pakistan over the time.

Disability rights activist Abia Akram on this occasion said that the number of persons with disability is around 10 t0 15 percent of the total population of the country. 50 percent of them are women and 80 percent of them living in rural areas. She identified infrastructure, communication, and legislations the key issues faced by the persons with disabilities.

Asim Zafar, another rights activist, said that the big issue is about the understanding of disability. “We are not the subject of health or of welfare. But we are the subject of human rights. Disability is a lifestyle,” he argued.

People with disabilities accounted for 15 per cent of Pakistan’s population, according to World Health Organization (WHO), he said. He said that the real disability existed in the society and attitudes of individuals. People usually sympathize with the disabled but they do not do much to help them.

Fasih ul Karim Siddiqui of EFP, representatives from the International labor Organization (ILO) Pakistan chapter, and Standard Chartered Foundation also spoke on this occasion.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2022