Although every child has the right to education regardless of ability, the majority of Palestinian children with disabilities do not go to school. Moreover, societal attitudes may tend to determine the effect of an impairment or disability on a person's daily life, rather than the functional limitations of the person in question. The Network spoke to a number of persons with disabilities, and to service-providing organizations (1) to investigate the current situation of disabled Palestinian children.
Due to the absence of a coordinating national government, and the resulting lack of statistics, there are only estimates of the number of persons with disabilities in the Occupied Territories (2). Most local specialists use a standard percentage of 3%, resulting in a total of 60,000 Palestinians with physical and mental disabilities of which 30,000 are children. For several reasons this enormous group of children is largely invisible. Firstly, as in many other societies, disability is a social stigma. The traditional expectations of the child as a helping hand, a marriage asset and a future social security for aging parents are difficult to live up to by disabled children. Secondly, lack of community health education and awareness about disabilities (3), coupled with the traditional attitude to the disabled as maskeen (poor, pitiful) or 'ajiz (unable) result in the community treating them with fear or pity. These two factors result in the parents feeling ashamed of the child, leading either to rejection and neglect -- or over-protection. So they will often tend to hide the child from the public gaze, or prevent him or her from mixing with other children for fear of insults or injuries - or even through the fear that other children will be contaminated. On top of this, political instability and a weak economy have contributed to the neglect of services, including education, for the disabled.
Thus the majority of disabled Palestinian children do not go to school. They stay at home, take part in family life to some extent, but rarely venture outside. Their overall development is stilted and they tend to be very isolated. When they grow up, they rarely go out to work or to have a family. (The strong social emphasis on marriage and childbearing, and the related ideal of beauty and health, result in double discrimination against disabled girls, who marry even more rarely than men). Owing to their dependence on the family, these children do not have the chance to develop independent, confident personalities, or social or professional skills. They often evince negative self-perception, coupled with dependency and high levels of frustration (Dukmak).
There are some children with disabilities (an estimated 3%) who, with the support of their parents and sometimes of aid agencies, do enroll in mainstream schools, although this has become less prevalent during the past twenty years. Even though studies have found that most headmasters accept this idea in principle, most schools are inaccessible to disabled children and do not have the necessary additional skilled personnel or materials; therefore children that do enter such schools are usually not severely impaired. Even if they manage to keep up with the regular curriculum they often drop out through lack of acceptance by other children, lack of qualified teachers, or for very practical reasons, such as the unwillingness of a headmaster to move a classroom downstairs or the lack of appropriate transport. Mainstreaming disabled children is more successful if it is pursued from kindergarten level upwards, and a pilot project has been initiated in this field (4).
Rehabilitation aims to reduce the consequences of impairment by facilitating social integration. It addresses both the immediate and wider environment of the child, and may incorporate a combination of special and mainstream education. There are few rehabilitation centers and schools for disabled children in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, mostly located in the central, urban areas.
The absence of a national Palestinian government has led to the absence of a national health apparatus and infrastructure. This also means that there is no integrated system of services for persons with physical and mental disabilities in the West Bank and Gaza. The Israeli occupying power neglected and obstructed the rehabilitation and education of the disabled under its control, despite the responsibilities stipulated in the Fourth Geneva Convention. It did not build a single rehabilitation center, nor did it provide basic commodities such as wheelchairs and crutches. Moreover, services offered by Palestinian organizations were subject to harassment by the authorities. UNRWA has only very recently started initiatives in the field of rehabilitation. It now requires that all its new schools be accessible for the disabled, and is participating in a community-based rehabilitation (CBR) program.
In the absence of alternatives, a number of private organizations offer services for disabled children. These can be divided into two broad categories: the older charitable organizations and newer grass-roots organizations. The former are mostly related to social or religious groups. By increasing the dependency of the disabled in their care, their approach contains little element of rehabilitation. The able-bodied staff are generally untrained in special education - none of the local universities offer such training - and whilst reports of sexual abuse may be hard to verify, it is common knowledge that the children in these institutions are frequently treated inhumanely. This may involve elements of corporal punishment, religious indoctrination and poor standards of health care and nutrition.
After 1970, due to the lack of services offered by the occupying authorities, grassroots movements appeared, offering services in small committees. The large number of injuries during the intifada (45,000 in the first three years alone) required a systematic effort to extend urgently needed services to the injured in villages and refugee camps. These organizations tend to offer more professional care and rehabilitation.
Since the late 80's there has been a larger emphasis on CBR instead of the traditional segregationist, institutionalized approach. The effectiveness of special education differs from one center to another, and rarely exceeds a four year time span. Therefore there is no effective special education program in the country, and many teachers who think they are practicing special education are doing the opposite.
Problems in the field remain unsolved because there is no effective body to monitor services to and education for the disabled, nor, until recently, were there any lobby groups. Israeli monitoring was restrictive and rejected by Palestinian organizations, and despite the existence of two Palestinian umbrella organizations (the Union of Palestinian Medical Relief Committees and the Central National Committee for Rehabilitation), coordination and policy guidelines are still lacking, and no effective monitoring is carried out which is partly due to their inability to make decisions at a national level, and lack of financial capabilities. Only an estimated 10 to 20% of all disabled children are reached by these organizations, though recently some local organizations in the West Bank have tried to set up a network for coordination, cooperation and exchange.
There are signs of change, however. Firstly, the resulting increase in available centralized and community based rehabilitation services has helped in changing community attitudes and has made people aware that the consequences of an impairment are not inevitable. Parents more readily accept their disabled children and assert their need for help (although archaic attitudes have not yet been dispelled). Secondly, the 'hero status' awarded to those with permanent intifada-related has accorded a certain prestige to the disabled (5). As in other countries in the wake of a war, this heightened awareness of disabilities may lead to legislation to protect the rights of the disabled and assist in rehabilitation, integration and education.
The present situation, in which Palestinian legislation is being prepared, and education and health authorities have been transferred to the Palestinian National Authority (PNA), could mark a new era. A number of pitfalls must be avoided, however. The present laws in the Territories provide insufficient provision for persons with disabilities and should not be used as a basis for legislation. There are no international conventions on the rights of the disabled, so that they cannot be enforced internationally. The Oslo Agreement, moreover, does not allow the PNA to ratify human rights conventions that implicitly mention the disabled. In addition, many persons with disabilities are not aware of or able to demand their full rights and thus might be appeased with superficial material provisions. Legal steps should include a consolidating statute collating all provisions and enforcement mechanisms regarding the disabled.
The General Palestinian Union of the Handicapped (6) has prepared a priority paper regarding the educational needs of the disabled. A national plan needs to be written by professionals, educators and the disabled themselves. It should be based on comprehensive field studies aimed at collecting data on numbers, local needs and experience. Regarding education, disabled children should be mainstreamed, where possible, and for this purpose a number of schools in each area should be made accessible and provided with teacher training and the necessary extra materials and rooms. For children who cannot be mainstreamed alternative strategies have to be developed, promoting independence and integration as much as possible. Rehabilitation organizations and mainstream schools need to be monitored by a national body with clear standards and policies. Curricula have to reflect a positive attitude to disabilities, expressing neither pity nor awe, but promoting visibility and self-respect through positive role models.
At present, the situation is still unclear. The PNA decision to delegate special education and rehabilitation to the Ministry of Social Welfare has not been greeted with much enthusiasm. Organizations feel that the disabled are not a PNA priority at present, as no mention has been made of government plans for facilities, or for support to existing organizations, many of which are threatened with closure due to lack of funds. It is feared that, if nothing is done at this crucial stage, disabled children will continue to be neglected and their future will be forgotten once again.
1. This article is based on interviews with Ziyad Amro (General Union of the Palestinian Handicapped), Jeris Shawa (director, Atfaluna Center for Deaf Children in Gaza), Angela Gaff (Al-Haq), Na'ila Rabah, (director, al-Nahda Rehabilitation Center), Matthias Hui (Star Mountain Rehabilitation Center), Muhammad al-Sabri and Reem 'Aliyan (Total Communication Deaf School) and Wafa Darwish (Bir Zeit University); and on the (unpublished) dissertation, Toward twofold liberation - the emergence of grass-root rehabilitation projects in Palestine, by Benno Offermann; the Al-Haq publication The human rights of persons with disabilities in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, S Dukmak in Comparative Studies in Special Education, K Mazurek and M A Winzer. For further information about any of these organizations or publications, please contact the Network.
2. No comprehensive studies have been conducted, although 3 or 4 localized surveys (such as a house-to-house survey in two camps in the Gaza Strip, resulting in a 4.4% percentage) have been done. International percentages range from 3 to 10 percent depending on what is defined as a disability.
3. This results, among others, in an inability to distinguish between physical and mental disabilities and lowers marriage prospects of siblings of children with disabilities.
5. Save the Children and UNICEF are currently supporting a pilot project of kindergarten mainstreaming.
6. Coverage is estimated at only 26% in the Gaza Strip and 29% in the West Bank.
7. As in other countries, most disabilities result from pre-, peri-natal complications, infections and illnesses, poor medical care and hygiene, poverty and accidents. Many specialists contribute a considerable share of disabilities in the Palestinian community to inter- and early marriage. A discrepancy of attitudes remains regarding congenital and infection-related disabilities and those caused by assault and torture during the intifada, -- which constitute a considerable factor in the number of disabilities.
8. The Union is an independent pressure group for the rights of the handicapped, founded by disabled people in 1989. It has 2,000 members, and aims at equal opportunities and rights for the disabled in all fields.
Elaine Clark
Educational Network, POB 66, Ramallah, West Bank
tel: 02 995 6230/fax: 02 995 6231 e-mail: eclark@ednet.birzeit.edu