No hope for visually impaired as job quota violation continues.

LAHORE -- A protest was held by the persons with visual impairment in December 2020 to press the government to take steps for implementation of their job quota.

'For the last four to five years, we have been working on daily wages,' says Nabeel who was one of the protesters.

'We are repeatedly given assurances that we will be given contractual jobs but nothing happens.'

Nabeel says that in one of their protests in April 2019, Minister for Social Welfare Raja Basharat had publicly announced that 'all blind people would be made permanent and that soon this notification would be released'. However to date, nothing has happened.

This was not the first protest by visually challenged people. In 2019, there was a sit-in at Charing Cross and despite a cold wave, the protesters ended up sleeping on the pavement. It was earlier the same year that Raja Basharat had visited them and assured them of the efforts being made.

Even before that, in 2014, there was another big protest which lasted for three days. There was a police crackdown on the protesters who were baton charged-though police later denied this.

Muhammad Owais, a political science lecturer at the GC College, who is also visually impaired, says that though a few steps had been taken by the government - former CM Shehbaz Sharif had increased job quota of Persons With Disabilities (PWDs) in Punjab, from 2pc to 3pc, and the new government had also implemented the laws to some extent - a lot more needed to be done.

'Private organisations continue to promise the government to advertise more job vacancies for the PWDs but they do not do it.'

According to Owais, there are over 600 daily wagers at the moment but only 250 had been appointed by the government until now.

Raja Basharat had also formed a committee to take care of their needs but Owais feels the bureaucracy is not fulfilling the minister's directives fully and it has been disinterested in taking up the cause.

Internationally, Pakistan is bound to implement all the laws concerning not just visually challenged people but also the PWDs. In 2016, Pakistan signed and agreed to work for achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Unlike the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), the SDGs of the 2030 agenda are more inclusive of the PWDs' rights as they make around 11 explicit references to the PWDs' rights. As a result, the federal and provincial governments have established the SDG units in their planning and development departments.

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