The best statistical analysis about our country lies with our telecom operators who invest in and maintain extensive data on the country’s population for their intrinsic benefit. In a very recent survey according to “Teletimes International,” Pakistan is a country of 169 million people with 2.49 per cent of its populace falling under the “disabled” category. This includes both visually- and physically-challenged people.

That is quite a large number of the population whose needs are completely ignored.

Harsh words I know, but the life of a person who is challenged in any way is the very epitome of misery in this country. And this begins from the very start: if a child is noted to be a little ‘slow’ or has difficulty in coping with normal activities, he or she is shunned by their family and those around them. Unfortunately, they grow up knowing there is something wrong with them and when they finally reach an age when they should be active, contributing members of society – they find out that there is no space for them, no acceptance here either.

We often point fingers at the system but we do not want to look in the mirror and realise that we are the system. How many private restaurants in the city of Karachi have accessibility options for physically- or visually-challenged individuals? How many of them have menus in Braille? If someone in a wheel chair wants to eat out at a restaurant, people accompanying him/her would have to first literally carry them in – instead of being wheeled in. The person would also be subjected to our ‘scrutiny’ and our innate ability to stare at anything out of the ordinary.

Let’s take a look at another aspect – there exists a quota for physically or visually challenged people in Pakistan, in both corporate and government jobs but it is more or less on paper only. As far as I know, people who do not measure up to our standards of ‘normal’ are usually shunned by most avenues of employment.

So what exactly are they supposed to do? Just because a person is physically challenged, does not mean he or she is less intelligent than any of us or cannot make the next breakthrough or achieve a name for themselves. We, however, think it is alright for such individuals to sit at home and think some more about what they cannot do.

Today, the world is accessible at your fingertips thanks to the internet and social media, bringing an inconceivable input of information to those who can access it. Yet this segment of our society cannot even use the internet because they cannot afford Braille keyboards or special software like Text to Speech or voice recognition.

Surprisingly, our telecom companies also choose to ignore such individuals even though according to their own data, 80 per cent of “disabled” people in Pakistan can only access the voice call facilities of their cell phones, 10 per cent of the hearing impaired can only use the SMS facilities (there is absolutely no use of text to speech across the board) while 30 per cent of all physically-challenged people cannot even use a cell phone due to device design.

How is such an individual supposed to even know what kind of services a carrier or DSL service is offering when they cannot visually or audibly access the brochures these companies make? Are any of the advertisement campaigns designed to provide access to those who cannot see or hear? Do any of our carriers offer the physically- or visually-challenged people in Pakistan an alternative other than total dependence on those around them, even when buying a SIM card?

We do give them one thing though – you see, we are a very compassionate nation so we show it by showering pity on these challenged individuals. The problem is they do not need our pity! It is our blatant ignorance that we act like such individuals are lesser mortals than us, hence making them conscious and insecure.

Albert Einstein could not read until he was 8, Thomas Edison until he was 12, John Milton went blind at 43, and Beethoven became deaf at 28. Imagine how many inventors, musicians and poets we may have but will never realise because they live in self-doubt and mental torture? Imagine what we could achieve, as a nation, if we gave them accessibility to the many things we take for granted.

The views expressed by this blogger and in the following reader comments do not necessarily reflect the views and policies of the Dawn Media Group.