Speakers at a book launching event on Saturday deplored that discrimination against persons with disabilities continued even after the student-led July uprising that called for ending all forms of discrimination.
They decried the deprivation of the persons with disabilities at the publication ceremony of 鈥楽hekolbandhi Swadhinata鈥�, a book written by Sabrina Sultana and published by The University Press Limited, jointly organised by the UPL and Krishty at Dhaka University.
Addressing the event, Salma Mahbub, general secretary of the Bangladesh Society for the Change and Advocacy Nexus, said that although a new government came to power through the anti-discrimination movement, discrimination against persons with disabilities continued as usual, rather their space to raise voices seemed to have narrowed.
Saying that neither the Ministry of Women and Children Affairs nor the Ministry of Social Welfare was attentive to the needs of the persons with disabilities, she mentioned that for that reason they had long been advocating for a separate department that would cater to the people with special needs.
Writer Sabrina, also the founding president of B-SCAN that works with persons with disabilities, said that the lives of about 2.5 crore persons with disabilities remained in darkness, as the state had failed to ensure their basic rights in the 53 years of independence.
Professor Anu Muhammad stressed a principled and ideological shift to address the issues of persons with disabilities鈥攐ne that values people, other living beings and nature.
抖阴精品 editor Nurul Kabir said that the issues of persons with disabilities were essentially political, and therefore required to be addressed through coordinated efforts by politicians, political organisations and others.
Dhaka University professor Samina Luthfa and barrister Jyotirmoy Barua also spoke at the event, moderated by journalist Mir Mosharraf Hossain.
