RIYADH, 18 January 2007 — Disabled persons in the Kingdom received a sliver of hope yesterday as their two-year-old demands to talk with high officials in the Ministry of Social Affairs was finally met.
A representative group of disabled men and women met with officials in a preliminary committee in the ministry yesterday. Representatives of the ministries of education, higher education and health, as well as the secretary-general of the Disabled Children’s Association, attended the meeting.
Yahya Al-Zahrani, spokesman for the group, said that he and his colleagues had been running from pillar to post for the past two years now trying to get attention from officials in the ministries of labor and social affairs to look into their legal and social rights.
Heading the preliminary committee was Talaat Al-Wazna. He made it clear to the group that the committee’s role was only “consultative” and it would not be able to implement their requests on its own.
Group members told the officials that even their attempts to employ wasta (the Arabic term for utilizing personal contacts to get deferential and expedited treatment from bureaucracy) were unsuccessful. Authorities kept referring them back to the Ministry of Social Affairs. “This proves that we are under your umbrella,” said Al-Zahrani. “So either you tell us we are not, and we seek our own ways, or help us restore our God-given rights.”
Officials told the members that several directives have been issued in the Eastern Province and the Riyadh Region to build wheelchair ramps in government buildings, but nothing has been done. They asked the members to be patient and noted that rights do not come quickly.
The group said they were discriminated against when applying for bank loans. “We are instantly rejected merely because we are disabled,” said Saud Al-Awad, one of the disabled persons in the group.
The group demanded that disabled people should be given in charitable housing projects.
Al-Jawhara Al-Tamimi, who attended the session, said that as a woman her condition required that she be given equal rights with men. “Even if a disabled woman is married and under the care of her husband, she still has to hire a full-time maid to look after her to complete her household chores,” she said.
Mubarak Al-Dosari said he was not given a chance to complete his education abroad because of his condition.
Some of the officials admitted that there was much negligence toward disabled people in Saudi society, noting that facilities such as special elevators or ramps were not provided for the disabled even in local airports. “It’s unfortunate that even when a disabled person comes to our ministry we have to go down and receive him because he cannot come up due to the lack of facilities,” said an official.
Al-Wazna said the committee would submit their requests to the minister later, but he did not specify when.
