We all need a reason to belong — Julian Wee

As we come up to the final year of the Enabling Masterplan 2007-2011, this might be a good time to point out an interesting, little-known fact: Singapore, Myanmar and North Korea are the only three countries in all of South, South-east and North-east Asia to not have signed the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CPRD).

Presumably, the Government here has its reasons for not signing the convention — perhaps it is waiting for the Enabling Masterplan to be renewed or its next iteration introduced, before committing to this new international standard. This would be my guess, since the masterplan’s criteria for classifying disability appears to lag international standards. The fact that Singapore also seems to be lagging in terms of disability policy is likely not coincidental.

The way disability is viewed internationally has changed quite dramatically in the last few decades. Earlier views — first codified by the World Health Organization (WHO) in 1980 — portrayed disability as essentially a medical condition.

But by 2002, the WHO had recognised in a report that a “decrement in health” (say, illness or ageing) that results in some form of disability is a “universal human experience”. The report moved from defining disability as basket of medical conditions, to a description of limitations on daily life.

And now, the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities has gone further - it includes among its general principles respect for the inherent dignity, autonomy and independence of persons; non-discrimination; full and effective participation in society; equality of opportunity; and the right of children with disabilities to preserve their identities, among other things.

The point to note is that this recognises implicitly that an individual’s medical condition need not determine his or her ability to function in society, nor is it grounds for his or her exclusion.

The 2007 Enabling Masterplan, however, seems premised on a different understanding of disability, which it defines as: “Those whose prospects of securing, retaining places and advancing in education and training institutions, employment and recreation as equal members of the community, are substantially reduced as a result of physical, sensory, intellectual and developmental impairments.”

The masterplan’s definition bears a striking resemblance to the 2002 WHO report in attributing limitations to an individual’s ability to function in society to medically-determined “impairments”, rather than the way the built-up environment is designed or organised.

The question is what impact this outmoded understanding would have.

SEGREGATION VS INCLUSION

From as far back as the 1980s, the medical-based understanding of disability has been criticised as deterministic and creating the tendency for persons with disabilities (PWDs) to be classed by how severe their medical condition is and their reduced ability to make key decisions.

This view of disability tends to focus policies and resources not on providing access and the means to integrate into mainstream society - but on creating an segregated environment where it is perceived PWDs will be more “comfortable”. The masterplan’s definition therefore ossifies the perception that PWDs can never be full members of society because biological reasons set us permanently apart.

This is a key problem, for it infuses the policy goals that in turn determine how effective policies can be in integrating PWDs into society. This is why the failure to sign the Convention is so frustrating, even galling - it seems to reflects a lack of ambition on the part of policy-makers to have PWDs live as full a life as possible.

One might wonder if an overly demanding implementation schedule might account for the Government’s reluctance to sign the Convention. This isn’t a likely explanation, given that the Convention doesn’t lay out a fixed timetable for the implementation of policy goals. Besides, most of our Asian neighbours who have signed up clearly do not appear to feel the requirements are overly onerous - why shouldn’t Singapore, with considerably more resources and bureaucratic capability at its disposal, be able to keep up in terms of being inclusive?

The next time a key policy-maker is asked how the Government is working towards giving young Singaporeans a greater sense of belonging, it would benefit him or her to be able to cite policy that — at least in its vision — is more ambitiously inclusive. Young Singaporeans would be encouraged to hear the Government is striving to ensure no one on the fringes of society and the economy is left behind.

As a disabled person, I can identify with the nebulous disenchantment that sometimes pervades everyday conversations about Government policy. For PWDs, the sense of alienation - from society and Singapore as a whole — is crystallised in a plethora of poorly thought-out, poorly implemented, or just plain absent, accessibility features.

In a Dec 4 feature in Weekend Today, Mr Chin Chi Leong, the Building and Construction Authority’s Commissioner of Buildings, was quoted as saying that 98 per cent of key Government buildings now have “at least basic barrier-free features”.

The reality is that “basic barrier-free features” in some cases literally means a ramp at the side of the building - and nothing else. Such rudimentary access features often mean that PWDs can enter a building, but not really use it regularly or work in it.

If the Government were to commit to the goals of the CPRD, it would, among other things, have to stop citing such features as examples of material progress. Accepting the right of PWDs to participate fully in Singapore’s economy and society means ensuring that our built-up environment doesn’t just appear to be accessible — a Potemkin infrastructure - but is truly so.

One might also add that the aim should be for PWDs to be able to access almost all of our built-up areas as independently as possible.

We may have come very far as a society, but we can be even better, in terms of how we treat each other. And it should start with a statement of lofty purpose, something we seem in dire need of as a society. Following through thereafter, by bringing one of the most marginalised sections of society into the fold, will give those who have become disenchanted an example of what we can achieve. — Today

* The writer is an economist and has been a person with disabilities since childhood.