“Persons with Disabilities”: Are We Doing Enough as a Society?

Background

On May 7, 2022, an incident happened at the Birsa Munda Airport, Ranchi, wherein a commercial flight operator barred a child with special needs (CWSN) to board the flight in view of being visibly distressed due to some unknown triggers. As per the narratives of certain copassengers (in news dailies and social media accounts), ¹ the child was comforted by his parents and seemed to be fine to travel in the aircraft. However, it was alleged that the gate agent at boarding station did not allow the child to travel and even announced the child to be risk for other passengers and compared his condition to a drunken passenger. As per the allegations of the copassengers, the gate manager was unfazed despite being assured that some doctors were travelling in the same aircraft, and they had assured timely medical assistance too. Eventually, the flight departed without the child and his parents who in turn were accommodated on another flight next day by the same airline operator. However, the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) stated in its investigation that the handling of the CWSN by the airline company’s ground staff was deficient who in turn ended up exacerbating the situation which could have been handled more patiently. The airline was fined by the DGCA and as per news reports, the airline company announced compensation for the child too. ²

Introduction

The United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (UNCRPD, 2007) ³ enshrines to promote, protect, and ensure full rights of people with disabilities. Further, concerns have been raised regarding protection of human rights of young people with disabilities in view of their challenging behaviors (CB) and consequently for their families too. ⁴ Emerson (1995) ⁵ described CB as “culturally abnormal behavior of such intensity, frequency or duration that the physical safety of the person or others is likely to be placed in serious jeopardy, or behavior which is likely to limit use of, or result in the person being denied access to, ordinary community facilities.”

In context to the media report, the information is insufficient to identify the exact disability in the child, but it would not be incorrect to assume that the child probably had either an intellectual or mental disability associated with some CB which consequently led to development of the situation (and subsequent unfortunate incident).

Protection of Human Rights—General Population

Global efforts to protect and promote the human rights in form of various international declarations, covenants and conventions have been fruitful. In the Indian context, the principles enshrined in its Constitution mandate provision of civil rights and socioeconomic benefits to the general population and persons with disabilities in specific. India had acceded to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR; United Nations, 1948) ⁶ as well as to the subsequent International Covenants on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights and Civil & Political Rights adopted by the Central Assembly of the United Nations. Moreover, in consonance with the UDHR, the Indian Constitution too provides the Right to Equality (Article 14, 15 & 16), Right against Exploitation (Article 23, and 24), and Cultural and Educational Rights (Article 29 and 30). The right to human dignity, education of child and the right to health has evolved according to various Supreme Court judgements and have been enshrined as Fundamental Rights. In addition to the fundamental rights applicable to every citizen of Independent India, Part IV of the Indian Constitution provides social- cultural and economic rights as “Directive Principles” to further ensure nonexploitation and equitable distribution.

Protection of Human Rights—Disabled Population

Prior to UNCRPD, the United Nations had put forth the “World Programme of Action on Disabled Persons (1982) & Standard Rules on the Equalization of Opportunities for Persons with Disabilities (1994)” for the specific population of the disabled. But, despite the Human Rights Conventions for affirmative action at international level, the UNCRPD, in its preamble acknowledges that disability often results from the attitudinal and environmental barriers which in turn impedes full and active participation of the disabled in the society. The attitudinal barriers may include stigmatization, social isolation, poor quality of life and consequently physical/psychological effects. The situation is further compounded by limited opportunities to receive education, secure work, and even access to various public services. It is often observed that public places lack the basic architectural modifications such as ramps, railings, signages, etc., to enable the disabled to utilize the facilities.

The Rights of Persons with Disabilities Act (2016) ⁷ provides for various rights and entitlements encompassing right to life, liberty and justice, education, skill development and employment, social security, health, rehabilitation, and recreation. The government has been bequeathed the responsibility to undertake suitable measures to provide the maximum benefits as per the RPwD Act and it is legally binding. Consequent upon this, many public and private places have tried to remove the architectural barriers to ease the access of facilities for the disabled. Many state-of-art airport buildings, shopping malls, health-care facilities, and even public offices in India provide ultra-luxurious experience to their service users and have ramped up their services for “persons with disabilities (PwD)” too. However, the societal barriers still violate the rights of persons with disability. Moreover, such hinderances may be more for the highly vulnerable groups such as children and women, elderly, the poor, religious minorities, and the persons with mental disabilities. As stated earlier, the problems may possibly exist more for those who reflect CB.

What about the Rights of Families of Persons with Disability?

Not too infrequently, if the rights of a disabled person are violated, the same happens to their caregivers and families too. The UDHR accords various rights and freedom to every individual including the families of PwD. On similar line, UNCRPD in its’ Article 23, provides a right for home and family life to the disabled. On the contrary, the statistics across the world, show that families/caregivers of the disabled often do not get equal opportunities to education, work, living standards, health and well-being, and participation in leisure and community activities.^{4, 8–10} Muir and Goldblatt ⁴ suggest that the rights of the PwD and their families must not contravene and instead should be complementary to each other. However, the latter is heavily dependent on participation of the State. For example, in the case being discussed here, the family of the disabled child had their own right to travel as per the UDHR and the rights accorded by the Indian Constitution. In addition, the child with disability (probably, with CB) had a right to travel with his parents as per the UDHR and RPwD Act, 2016.^{3, 7} In such a scenario, it was the State’s duty to provide necessary medical services to enable the child and his family to travel together in case of any exigency.

Balancing the Rights of Persons with Disability and their Families with Others

Another aspect of this case scenario, which has not been discussed in the media is about the Rights of Others (here being: the copassengers and the crew). There might have been a possibility that the CB manifested by the child could have intimidated the gate manager and the crew, who in turn might not have been skilled enough to deal with such medical problems and thus debarred the child from boarding the flight. To reiterate, UDHR and the Rights accorded by Indian Constitution such as the “Right to security of person” might be at contravention with the PwD and his family’s right to means of transport. At present, most of Indian airports provide disabled friendly services which are often far better than those provided at other public places. Also, the airline staff is often well-equipped to handle unruly passengers with utmost patience. But media reports of enraging actions of the airport or security staff is not uncommon. Hence, it becomes the duty of the State to ensure that balance is maintained for the enjoyment of Human Rights by its people irrespective of status of disability. Further, utmost efforts must be made to remove the attitudinal and societal barriers and protect the vulnerable groups such as children with disabilities.

Recommendation-Need for Regular Training for Airlines Staff in Dealing with Children with Mental or Intellectual Disability

The current incident also shows the need to provide appropriate training to the staff present in the transport services to deal with people with mental disability. The existing DGCA requirements mention that airlines should ensure disability awareness training for assisting PwD. ¹¹ However, there is no guideline on how frequent the training should be and who should conduct the training. The training should ideally be done at baseline at the time of recruitment of new staff as well at regular intervals. It is necessary to train the transport staff in communication skills, especially while dealing with PwD. Verbal de-escalation methods should always be the first step in dealing with passengers who are agitated or anxious. ¹² This supportive environment for the passengers will not only be beneficial for the passengers, but it will also increase the trust of the passengers in the airlines, leading to a better image and more profits for the airlines. News reports indicate that DGCA is making amendments in the civil aviation requirements, to make sure that it is the doctor who assesses the passenger and states whether his/her medical condition is fit for him/her to fly. ¹³ This can help to reduce the incidents of passengers with any kind of disability being unnecessarily/inappropriately denied boarding the flight by airlines staff. However, amendments should also be done to make it mandatory for the airlines staff to undergo disability awareness training as well as communication skills training at regular intervals, to bring about positive changes in the long term.

Conclusions

Efforts should be made to remove the attitudinal and societal barriers for PwD and protect this vulnerable group. Improving the communication skills and disability awareness through regular quality training for the staff working in the transport field can help in preventing such “avoidable” incidents of harassment of PwD in the future.