RIGHTS-BRAZIL: Disabled Need More than Good Laws

By Mario Osava Reprint | | Print |

Mario Osava

RIO DE JANEIRO, Sep 27 2004 (IPS) - Activists in Brazil agree that the country has good laws in favour of the disabled. But they say they are not always enforced, and that in practice only a small proportion of people with disabilities have access to public transportation or adequate health services, for example.

Activists interviewed by IPS said that Brazil’s strong showing in a recent international study that ranks South America’s giant among the top five countries in the Americas with respect to the situation of the disabled – along with Canada, Costa Rica, the United States and Jamaica – is due largely to the country’s strong legislation.

The study by the Centre for International Rehabilitation (CIR) formed part of its International Disability Rights Monitor (IDRM) programme.

The IDRM Regional Report of the Americas documented the situation of people with disabilities in 24 countries, focusing on six broad areas: legal protection, education and employment, mobility, health services and housing, communications and compliance with international treaties.

Ten of the 24 countries were classified as moderately inclusive, such as Argentina, Chile, Mexico and Uruguay, while the nine least inclusive countries were the poorest nations of South and Central America, including Bolivia, Guatemala, Guyana and Honduras.

CIR is a Chicago-based non-governmental organisation that seeks to improve the lives of people with disabilities in poor countries by providing rehabilitation and training programmes and mobility aides, and advocating the rights of people with disabilities worldwide.

The assessment was heavily based on national laws and adherence to international conventions on the rights of the disabled, which is why Brazil scored so high, Claudia Werneck, president of the Escola de Gente, an NGO in Rio de Janeiro that specialises in communication aimed at social inclusion, told IPS.

Brazil is a pioneer in Latin America with respect to ratifying international treaties, and it has passed advanced legislation recognising a broad range of rights for the disabled.

The most visible advances establish architectural and city planning requirements to facilitate access to public areas and buildings, and set quotas requiring large businesses to hire people with disabilities, who must make up between two and five percent of the payroll depending on the size of the company.

But the biggest challenge is to modify society’s attitude towards the disabled, said Werneck, a journalist who has written several prize-winning books on the issue.

She noted, for instance, that the disabled continue to be deprived of "the right to communicate". The media and public meetings and activities tend to be exclusively conceived of for people who see, hear and speak normally. Sign language interpreters for the deaf and information in braille are rarely included, said the activist.

"No one bans deaf people from attending, or rejects blind people at public events," but that does not mean they are included, because true inclusion would require conditions under which everyone could participate and express themselves, she said.

Brazil’s laws are fairly close to excellent, said Marta Gil, head of the Saci Network, created by university institutions to disseminate information aimed at improving the lives of the disabled.

For example, there are no regulations for ensuring access to computers and the Internet, although draft laws to that effect are being studied in parliament, she pointed out.

But in real life, only a small portion of disabled people in Brazil have access to prosthetic devices, public transportation or adequate health services. "Without transportation, they can’t go to school, and without an education it is impossible to get a job," Gil commented to IPS.

There are relatively few disabled people in Brazil with a steady job: just 537,000, or two percent of all employees in the formal sector of the economy, according to a census by the Getulio Vargas Foundation, a centre for education and research on the economy and public administration.

According to the 2000 census, there are 24.5 million disabled people in Brazil, or 14.5 percent of the total population of 178 million.

But Marta Gil said the visibility the issue is acquiring is "encouraging". It has been bolstered, for instance, by the strong performance of the country’s athletes in the Paralympics, which opened Sep. 17 and run through Sep. 28 in Athens.

As of Sep. 25, Brazil had won nine gold medals – three more than in the last Paralympics in Sydney, in 2000.

The scholarships granted to high-performance disabled athletes, based on funds collected through a government lottery, are producing champions.

The most important thing is that for the first time, TV and other media in Brazil are providing broad coverage of the Paralympic Games, giving more visibility to the disabled and showcasing their abilities, said Gil.

The day-to-day, painstaking efforts for the rights of the disabled, which have slowly been gaining ground, were given a major boost by the Games in Athens, she said.

But the results of the Paralympics can present an overly rosy picture of how the disabled are treated in Brazil.

Cintia Regina Ribeiro, who was left paraplegic by a car accident in 1987 and went on to become a star of the women’s wheelchair basketball team, which took eighth place in the Atlanta Paralympics in 1996, told IPS that there is no state support enabling disabled female basketball players to practice regularly.

This year, Brazil did not take a female wheelchair basketball team to Athens.

While the country has good laws, they are separated from reality by a large gap, said Ribeiro, who works in an institution that assists the disabled in Rio de Janeiro.