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After Malik Mohammad lost both his legs in a land mine explosion in 2005 in Kabul he decided not to give up on himself. The summer of 2012 he represented Afghanistan at the London Paralympics and is a keen sportsman representing is country.
Photos from international day of disable persons in Kabul
Our friend Jawad Jalali is a photojournalist from Afghanistan and shared these photos with us recently from International World Disability Day in Kabul 2015. Disability is common in Afghanistan, a lot of these are the consequences of IED’s and terror attacks, for 2014 it was estimated by the UN that combined civilian causalities would top 10,000 deaths and injuries in the year, nearly a 20% increase from last year and the highest record since records were kept in 2009 (UNAMA, 2014). The majority of causalities are attributed to the Taliban and other insurgent groups according to Georgette Gagnon, the Director of Human Rights at UNAMA. Data also shows an increase in children causalities by 33% and with women an increased by 14%.
In 2012 the International Committee of the Red Cross gave these statistics:
Thousands of Afghans have been injured or disabled during years of conflict. To provide physical rehabilitation services for amputees and others with disabilities, the ICRC runs seven prosthetic/orthotic centers throughout Afghanistan. The centers help disabled people to walk again and support their social reintegration by providing vocational training, micro-credit loans and home education for children. A home-care service offers medical, economic and social support to paraplegics. In 2012, the seven ICRC centers: registered 7,929 new patients, including 1,218 amputees; assisted 80,528 patients; fitted 14,841 prostheses and orthotic devices; held 241,379 physiotherapy sessions; granted micro-credit loans to 695 patients to help them start small business ventures; provided vocational training for 265 patients, 239 of whom completed their training before the year was out; conducted 7,083 home visits to treat patients with spinal cord injuries.
In Afghanistan the difference of defined disability is often perceived as a ground for exclusion from society particularity in the economic world. Until recently disability was considered a charity issue and thus few provisions in government were made for disabled people which saw the disabled denied the right to access education, employment and exclusion from the political process left them relying on good will with no formal disability provisions. Afghanistan and includes people with severe intellectual – mental and psychiatric – or multiple disabilities, elderly people, rural disabled, those displaced by violence, the war disabled and disabled refugees are particularly vulnerable groups. Children with disabilities have traditionally been seen as less worthy of social investment – access to education for example – than other children. Women with disabilities often suffer double discrimination. Minority groups, including racial and ethnic minorities, are similarly disadvantaged. Invisibility often means that the universal right of equal opportunity is simply not applied equally to disabled people, contrary to what is outlined as recommended by the UN Standard Rules and the current UN draft disability convention.