General Background of the Disabled Children in India

No. Case Details Type
1. Case study disabled children Download  Download



The disabled children are taken no good care for. As soon as they are born with an obvious disability they are rather left alone, spending not too much attention but only provide the child with the necessary food. If the disability is not obvious they will find out later and be disappointed even more. If the child is mentally retarded it is a big shame for the family since the stigma attached to these people is strong.

Society is not established for disabled people and society likes to think in boxes where disabled persons have difficultly to fit in and where mentally retarded doesn’t fit in.

Living below the poverty line and having a disabled child is really a burden. Parents are not aware of their rights so they receive not any help from government, only funny and pity looks from their surroundings. They think it is therefore better to leave the child inside the house and find it not useful to spend too much time with. Besides, the parents are having a hard time knitting one day to another since income for them is low.

If only… there was more awareness by the parents.

The children and youth we’ve interviewed are all connected with DEET and all receive help as well as their parents who gained more awareness trough counseling. It is clear most parents we’ve talked to love their children, but sometimes their love is tainted with a touch of egoism, not knowing that letting the children go to a specialized school could be better for their future, and for their self esteem. Egoism also in the fact that they do sent their child to school but only to get rid of him or her. Education for the sake of education seems to be unnecessary for a child who is of little use in society. You can not directly blame those parents as they do not know any better.

The parents of the disabled children I have met were all loving and/or taking (some) care of them, as far as I can see. There seems to be growing awareness about disability but only among those who are in direct contact with DEET. The parents of disabled children come together in a meeting and get told about the abilities of their children, the need for education and the basic rights of those children. All the rest, especially the ones who didn’t gain this awareness, and other children, like bullying and laughing at disabled children. This is actually a very strong characteristic in all the Asian cultures. Most children are not stable and not strong enough when they get bullied or laughed at so the mother is receiving a sad and a crying child, who hopefully receives a self esteem boast.

Children often are ashamed of their disability and they are hiding their amputee or misshaped hand. Sometimes they are overprotected by their friends or parents. If the child is the parent’s only child it seems to be unthinkable to send the kid to a specialized school and so the child stays close to his parents, devoid from special education. A mentally retarded child is worse off…

First of all, most families are poor that special education is out of reach, if at all they know about the facilities of these schools. The children I have met who are mentally retarded are going to normal school where in a class of 40 students not even a slightly bit more attention is possible to receive. Those children are usually in a much lower level which makes them stand out even more. Nothing is done to stimulate those children so they remain mostly in their low state of development. The parents just don’t know, or don’t care, what is good for such a child, some basic care and food is usually all they receive. To stimulate a mentally retarded child seems to be unknown for many parents and so I met children doing nothing.