Discrimination towards the Disabled Still Occurs
Tuesday, 09 January, 2007 | 17:12 WIB

TEMPO Interactive, Jakarta: The discrimination towards disabled people still occurs in Indonesia. “Many companies are reluctant to recruit disabled people,” said Head of the Association of Blind Indonesians Didi Tarsidi during a break in the National Working Meeting of the Association of Blind Indonesian yesterday (01/08) in Jakarta. In fact, Law Number 4/1997 on Disabled People has stipulated that a company is obliged to recruit one out of 100 workers.

The disabled people are now one percent of the total Indonesian inhabitants. Of the amount, only small numbers of them were recruited at the formal sector. The rest of them were informal workers such as masseuse, street singers or beggars.

It is acknowledged that a company must spend more for recruiting disabled people. For instance, a company must provide a new computer for the disabled with Job Access with Speed software. The program is offered at US$1,095 or around Rp9.8 million.

In addition, said Didi, many entrepreneurs do not recognize the law. “Now let us not speak about how to implement the regulation. In fact, they have not ever heard of the regulation,” he said.

Discrimination has also occurred in the educational sector. Almost all formal schools cannot provide educational services to the disabled. Schools do not have special facilities for them, especially for educational staff having no ability in dealing with the disabled . It is estimated that only 10 percent of the disabled are able to get an education.

Ariyani, founder of the Association of Blind Indonesians, said that the disabled have also experienced difficulties in gaining capital. Banking circles are reluctant disbursing credit to the disabled . “They argue that the signature of the disabled often alters,” she said.

According to the Director General of Social Services and Rehabilitation Makmur Sanusi, Law Number 4/1997 does not work because governmental regulations have not supported it. Without any governmental regulation, the law will be difficult to stipulate. “The reason is that the law has not yet sanctioned it,” he said.

According to Makmur, the Department of Social Services is preparing a government regulation so that the Law on the Disabled can be stipulated. The department is also ratifying the United Nations convention on the rights of the disabled that was held on 13 December last year. It is targeted that the ratification can be implemented in April of this year. “With the ratification, the government's position will be stronger in pressing entrepreneurs to meet the rights of the disabled,” he said.

Pramono