Disabled People and Comprehensive Security
The needs of disabled survivors can be analysed using the six dimensions of comprehensive security. to show that there is indeed a lack of these security elements in their lives. Comprehensive security is defined as the absence of threats against the physical and functional well-being and their form of political and social organisation.
The first dimension is political security which can be defined, in terms of disability, as a position of disabled people in the state. This comes from the idea that a disabled person is personally a member of the state who has the same rights as other citizens. Citizenship, with equal participation in a national community, is one means of achieving social and political integration, either through the general acceptance of common values or through the negotiation of divisive inequalities. Therefore, the absence of needs of disabled people in Aceh after the Tsunami can be seen as a failure of the state to fulfil its responsibilities to disabled people. In addition, it is assumed that the government does not carry out the needs of disabled people in Aceh because disabled survivors are powerless and lack bargaining position at the political level.
The issue of equal rights of disabled people emerged in Indonesia when many independent organisations were established by disabled people during the 1990’s, and further these organisations stimulated the disability movement in Indonesia. The disability movement has urged the government to establish regulations which ensure disabled people’s rights in every sector of their life. In 1997, the Indonesian government established the Public Act No. 4 (1997) on Person with Disabilities which covered the rights of persons with disabilities in all aspects of livelihood, including education, training and job opportunities. However, this regulation does not cover special needs of disabled people in disaster situations.
The second dimension is social security, defined as sustainability, within acceptable conditions for evolution, of traditional pattern of language, culture, religious, national identity and custom. In addition, the concept of social security is linked to the economic security concept in terms of the effect of disability to the survivors. The situation in which public facilities are not readily available in refugee camps has prevented disabled survivors to participate in the social activities. The Sphere Project defined that response programs and projects should be designed to close the gap between existing living conditions and the Sphere Minimum Standard. Social security can be also defined as ensuring the future of disabled survivors. Disabled survivors may lose their main income as farmers, fishermen, company employees, etc. Moreover, the situation in Indonesia is worse in terms of social security system where the government does not have a social insurance to its citizens.
Basically the Indonesian government has a legal constitution on social security which is stipulated in article 34 of Undang-Undang Dasar1945 which states that “The poor and destitute children shall be taken care of by the State”. However, the government does not have a sufficient social security system in place. The state social security is provided only for those who have regular wage such as government officers, military officers, and company employees. Pension is provided for government officers and Jamsostek (Social Security for the employee) is only provided for private or company employee.
This condition becomes worse by existing social discriminatory attitudes towards disabled people. This social discrimination is based on the perception that disability is the result of a curse. This becomes a main barrier for disabled people to move forward in terms of social participation. Most Indonesians, especially those in the rural areas, have a negative perception of disabled people. There are some myths and stereotypes which stigmatised the disabled people and see them as valueless and less capable. Furthermore, the stigma affects social perception and social behaviour towards disabled people in the way that disabled people are refused as employees. Consequently, the majority of disabled people in Indonesia are living in poverty.
The third dimension of Comprehensive Security is environmental security. With regard to disabled people in disaster situations, environmental security is explained by two perceptions about environment. Many cases of disability are caused by natural disasters (flood, earthquake, volcano, etc) which prove that natural environment has contributed in increasing the number of disabled people. On the other hand, environment can also be understood as physical infrastructures which usually become the great barrier of disabled people to participate fully in social activities.
The later perception about environmental security developed to be the main issue in disability. This is related to the rights of disabled people to have an equal opportunity in all aspects of social life. In addition, participation and an equal opportunity which are less possessed by disabled people mainly caused by unfriendly physical infrastructures. However, so far this issue remain to be the main problem for disabled people both in the natural disaster situations and the normal situations.
The condition of physical infrastructures in the disaster situations is worse compare to the condition in the normal situations due to the lack of disability awareness among the humanitarian organisations. In refugee camps where non-permanent physical infrastructures are built without disability perspective, disabled people face a big challenge in their daily life. Therefore, it should be planed when humanitarian organisations build non-permanent public facilities in refugee camps to ensure that persons with mobility, hearing, visual, and cognitive disabilities are ensured have ability to use the space independently.
The forth dimension is food security. In the context of the pilot project, food security is defined as equal access of food including water and other basic needs. Food is certainly a basic need of human beings to survive and to ensure a healthy life. It is also stated that having enough and adequate food is considered to be the rights of everybody. In a disaster situation, delivering aids, especially food, poses a problem. Food cannot be delivered directly to the survivors due to roads and infrastructures having been destroyed. As the result, food is dropped from the air by helicopters so that the survivors can be helped sooner. On the other hand, the way of delivering food by dropping them from the air is certainly disadvantageous to vulnerable groups such as women, children, elderly people, and disabled people.
On another note, in humanitarian intervention situations, the lack of access to food is caused also by failed distribution systems. Delivery of food often develops into a problem due to insufficiency of infrastructures such as access of roads and also the lack of facilities to deliver the food to disaster areas.
Among vulnerable groups, disabled people is the group which face the most challenge in accessing food during the intervention phase due to their physical handicap. Additionally, in practice, disabled people are less taken into account by the humanitarian workers in the intervention process. This condition has caused disabled people in disaster areas to suffer more, not only from their physical conditions, but also from the fact that special treatment for disabled people are less likely to be included in humanitarian programmes.
The fifth dimension of comprehensive security is health security. Health security is closely related to the issue of disabled survivors. Most of disabilities or impairment in disaster situations is caused by infected injuries during the disaster. The health conditions in disaster areas are usually not well managed. Sanitations, shelters, and the environment surrounding refugee camps are often not clean. Therefore, the last dimension of comprehensive security, environmental security, should be integrated with the concept of health security in order to prevent further negative effects on the health of disabled survivors.
The last dimension of comprehensive security is economic security. Poverty is both a cause and consequence of disability. Poverty and disability reinforce each other, contributing to increased vulnerability and exclusion. The definition of vulnerability in the World Development Program 2000/2001 defines that Vulnerability is a constant companion of material and human deprivation, given the circumstances of the poor and the near-poor . Refers to that definition, Disabled people are the most vulnerable group of the economic security especially in the developing countries. They do not have such economic assets which proposed by World Bank as the causes of poverty, human assets, natural assets, physical asset, financial asset, and social assets are not performed by the disabled people. Most of them are unskilled and uneducated.
World Health Organization estimated ten percent of total population in Indonesia is disabled people. Most of them are living in poverty due to lack of access to the economic activities. The reason of disabled people living in poverty can be determine from two perspectives. Socially, disabled people are stigmatized for having low capability and capacity. This stigma influences to the social attitude that the society is reluctant to accept disabled person to be an employee. Consequently, most of disabled people are unemployed and lack of income. Politically, disabled people are a group with sense of voiceless and powerless in the society. Disabled people are not actively involved in the decision making process even the policy is linked to their own problem. As the result, the policy which is set up to solve the disabled people problems is not effectively working in the operational level.
Economic security for disabled people is not simply just by providing a social insurance in terms giving some money every month. Encouraging them to be self-sufficient and reducing the discrimination against them are the best way to bring them out from the poverty. In addition, empowerment is also needed in terms of enhancing the capacity of them to influence the state institution that affects their life by strengthening their participation in political process and local decision making process.
In brief, it can be said that according to the six dimensions of Comprehensive Security the needs of disabled people especially in delivering aids and services are less taken into account by humanitarian organisations. This situation seems to be a complex matter where each dimension of comprehensive security interlinked with others. Therefore, a comprehensive analysis which involves all aspects social and managerial organisation should be applied to overcome the problems faced by disabled people in humanitarian situations.
