State of the World's Children 2013 - Unicef

Data can be hard to gather: Indigenous households can be
scattered, often in remote areas. There might not be enough
interviewers who speak indigenous languages.
households can be scattered,
often in remote areas. There
might not be enough interviewers
who speak indigenous languages.
In many cases, families
deny our existence to the people
who conduct surveys. Even
where parents acknowledge
and want to support us, they
can end up providing insufficient
information because they
have little of it to begin with, as
there are few if any screening
or diagnostic services. Because
the lack of such services contributes
to our invisibility, it is
a threat to our physical and
intellectual condition. Adding
to the problems, girls and boys
with disabilities often go unregistered
at birth, and this is one
of the main obstacles to the
recognition of our citizenship
and our right to public services.
This should motivate research
into disability among indigenous
populations – and the
results can serve as a starting
point for developing public policies
and services that address
our needs and guarantee our
rights.
The lack of access to the mainstream
education system must
also be corrected. The inclusion
of indigenous children with disabilities
is required under the
Convention on the Rights of
Persons with Disabilities, but
in practice, inclusion is often
beyond the reach of children
from our communities: The
distances they must travel daily
to get to school can be prohibitive.
Few schools have the
minimum services and facilities
to make learning accessible.
And again, traditional community
practices contribute to the
lack of educational inclusion.
Clan chiefs determine the roles
of boys and girls from birth and
if a child has a disability, it is
generally thought that sending
her or him to school is a waste
of time as well as an undue
economic burden on the family.
Many people think that those
of us who have a disability are
broken objects that will not be
useful even if we are patched
up. The situation is even worse
for girls, as it is harder for us to
obtain permission to study than
it is for boys with disabilities.
Even when the community’s
stigmas are overcome and we
manage to attend school, our
teachers face two obstacles:
insufficient knowledge of
indigenous languages and
inadequate teacher training in
inclusive education. This lack of
training makes it more difficult
to include children with disabilities.
As a consequence, we are
forced to rely on the goodwill
of individual teachers to accept
the challenge of including
indigenous children with disabilities
in their classrooms.
In Mexico as elsewhere, governments,
international agencies
and community groups are
striving to eliminate the gap
between what is ideal and what
is currently possible. We must
continue to work together to
ensure more just and equitable
childhoods, to transform the
lives of indigenous girls and
boys with disabilities with hope
and opportunity – so they, too,
can be free to let their dreams
take flight.
MEASURING CHILD DISABILITY
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