B Valarmathi, Minister for Social Welfare and Nutritious Meal Programme,
releasing the UNICEF’s Annual state of the world’s children report.
Also seen are Saraswathi Rangasamy, Chairperson of Tamil Nadu State
Commission for Protection of Child rights, and Sathish Kumar, Chief,
UNICEF office for Tamil Nadu and Kerala
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Families should be preferred over institutions when it comes to
taking care of disabled children, said Sathish Kumar, Chief of UNICEF,
State office for Tamil Nadu and Kerala, during the release of the
UNICEF’s Annual State of the World’s Children’s report.
“Families
with disabled children must be given assistance to provide care for
their children. If the child does not have own parents, then relatives
or foster parents must take their responsibility. Though there are a
number of issues that arise in such cases, they are much lower when
compared to the ones that arise when these children are put in
institutionalised care,” he said.
Sathish Kumar highlighted that
the number of disabled persons reported in the census was grossly
under-represented. “The census 2011 reports that the disabled account
for 2.13 per cent of India’s population. But as per the world report on
disability 2011, about 25 per cent of the people in India are disabled.
Census must take into account the relevant parameters that can track the
actual disability in the country,” he said. He added that since census
is carried out on a largescale it might be difficult to track the
accurate number of the disabled. It is up to the States and communities
to take up surveys to identify the scale of the problem,” he said. The
screening of newborn children for disability under the National Rural
Health Mission is a step forward, he said.
The report says that
children with disability, especially girls, face a greater risk of being
poor, abandoned and stigmatised. Hence, society has a responsibility to
provide an inclusive and enabling environment to the children, he
pointed out.
Source : The New Indian Express , 29th June 2013
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