Opinions & Interviews

Chairman of Disabled Gathering: "Iraq produces disability!"

Sunday, February 7th 2010 7:21 AM
 


 
Baghdad, Feb. 7 (AKnews) - The Chairman of Iraqi Disabled Gathering, Fakher Al Jamal, said that Iraq produces disability, and the number of disabled due to "terrorist operations" are the most numerous among the rest of the disabled, noting that women with disabilities face more obstacles than disabled men.

  KamandamanThe correspondent of the Independent National News Agency of Kurdistan (AKnews) in Baghdad, met Al Jamal and talked to him about the problems of disabled people in the country:

AKnews: How did the idea of establishing the Assembly spark?

Fakher Al Jamal: After the fall of the (former Baath) regime we establised an Assembly for disabled persons and it was one of 35 active organization collected by the American organization "Hirsi Cor" and a special assembly was made, but later we left it because of the uniqueness of the decision by its administration, and we decided to form this Gathering in which we selected 40 disabled who founded it, then we began working to include the disabled within it.
 
AKnews: Does the group include disabled men only, or there are women also?

F.J: On the contrary we have 12 handicapped women, two of them are among the founders of the assembly, and the majority of our colleagues have played a major role in supporting the assembly, and among them there were creators in sports and art.
 
AKnews: In your opinion, who faces more difficulty in life, women or men?

F.J: The truth is that women with disabilities face greater difficulties in coping with obstruction due to social attitudes, the most important problems they face is the difficulty to get married due to her disability.
 
AKnews: Were their any marriages within the disabled organization?

F.J: Yes, once one of our colleagues who have lost his lower limbs married a colleague
who lost her upper parties and their marriage was successful.
 
AKnews: As an athlete, despite your disability, how does the disabled athlete differ from the normal one?

F.J: Disabled athlete get more attention than the rest of the disabled. He is the most fortunate among the disabled in obtaining his rights completely,while the other disabled suffer from marginalization.
 
AKnews: There is a constitutional guarantee for your rights, why don't you ask for applying it?

F.J: Surely, Article 32 guarantees the rights of the disabled, but it has not been implemented. We have repeatedly asked the Government to implement it and to form a national commission to take care of persons with special needs and it is an independent constitutional body that is related directly to the Council of Ministers, but the levels of representation is not fair. We demand the disabled people to have (50 +1) so to garantee our rights.
 
AKnews: Will there be certain ministries within the body?

F.J: Yes, the ministries of Labor and Social Affairs, Ministry of Human Rights, Ministry of Health and other ministries will be within the body, as well as the representation of the disabled, but it is still under establishment.

kamandam  AKnews: Do you think that the declared statistics for the disabled in Iraq are real?

F.J: The Health Ministry recently announced a statistics in which it stated that the number of disabled is nearly two million disabled, but the real number is larger than this number  because "Iraq produces disability!" and the number of the disabled is increasing day after day.
 
AKnews: What is the percentage of people with disabilities caused by "terrorism" after the fall of Saddam Hussein's regime, other than the rest with disabilities in Iraq?

F.J:  "terrorism" caused the highest percentage of disabilities that were caused by wars over the past twenty years, where the majority of those who were wounded in explosions and "terrorist acts" are about to be disabled.
 
AKnews: What about the rest of the disabled?

F.J: We have two main categories for the disabled; one is the "civilian disabled" and the second is "the war disabled," and some disabled were born because of the marriage of relatives and their number increased dramatically since 1990 as a result of economic conditions.
 
AKnews: What are you doing to implement the International Convention for the disabled?

F.J: We are trying to push Iraq to sign the agreement that was already signed by 145 countries to be applied, and if it was applied, all the rights of the disabled in the country will be gauranteed.

Rn/Sh. (AKnews)

 
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