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In the hospital, even doctors are not disability-friendly. The system where you need to stand in a queue for hours. It’s not possible to stand for hours with a child with intellectual disability. So we’re not able to get good medical care.²⁶⁷

Parents also told Human Rights Watch that doctors did not treat them well, making rude remarks about the disabilities and questioning why the child should even go to school.²⁶⁸

Children with disabilities in rural areas face additional barriers associated with long distances to medical care and lack of transportation.

Stigma against Children with Disabilities and Their Families

In the village, other people used to tease me by calling me a buffalo, telling me to find my shepherd.

- Santosh, 23-year-old deaf student studying at a special school for the deaf, Pokhara, April 2011

There is a strong belief in Nepal that disability is due to sins in a past life. In fact, nearly 30 percent of the parents of persons with disabilities surveyed for the 2001 study reported that the disability of their child was due to fate and God's will.²⁶⁹ These beliefs often prevent them from accessing appropriate education or health care for children with disabilities because families are ashamed of their children or do not see the benefit of sending them to school.

Children with disabilities experience stigma and verbal abuse in the school and the community. They are called “dumb”, “stupid”, “langandi” (disabled, someone who has a

with Subarna Chitrakar, mother of 30-year-old woman with intellectual disability and autism and founder of SUNGAVA, a vocational training program for young women and girls with intellectual disabilities, Kathmandu, March 30, 2011.

lost a leg), “kujji,” (disabled, a person who cannot move their limbs),²⁷⁰ “danne” (someone who takes donations),²⁷¹ and “rach ko chora” (illegitimate child).²⁷²

In many instances, children with disabilities are stared at or teased. Lalitha, the mother of a young man with Down’s syndrome, told Human Rights Watch, “They look at them like they are aliens from another world.”²⁷³ Lakshmi, mother of 16-year-old Amman, told us that he is forced to sit on a smaller chair in the corner because the other children do not want to sit with him.²⁷⁴

While teaching is generally a respected profession, special education teachers are also subjected to verbal abuse by people in the community. One teacher in a day care center for children with intellectual and developmental disabilities told Human Rights Watch:

They use the term “dominate,” which means that we are trodden, we feel like we should bow our heads.²⁷⁵

Special education teachers are also hired under special contracts that do not include pension benefits. A government working group is looking into this discrepancy.²⁷⁶

In schools, siblings of children with disabilities sometimes do not acknowledge that they have a sister or brother with a disability because other children will make hurtful remarks. As Mukunda explained:

Generally, for all children with disabilities, it’s not a disability-friendly

environment. For example, they are taught a poem in school that says: ‘I am more clever than the deaf one.’ How will they understand?²⁷⁷

270 Human Rights Watch interview with Mayakuna, mother of a 6-year-old girl with physical disability and possible developmental disability, Kanchanpur district, April 4, 2011.

271 Human Rights Watch interview with Indra, 10 year old boy with a physical disability, Dhadeldhura district, April 5, 2011.

272 Human Rights Watch interview with Kiran, 15 year old boy with a possible psychosocial disability, Dhadeldhura bus station, April 5, 2011.

273 Human Rights Watch interview with Dr. Lalitha Joshi, gynecologist and President of Down Syndrome Association, Kathmandu, March 30, 2011.

274 Human Rights Watch interview with Lakshmi Chaudhari, mother of Amman, a 16 year old boy with a physical disability, Mahendranagar, April 4, 2011.

275 Human Rights Watch interview with Meena Kasey, founding member and teacher, National Association for the Intellectual Disabled (NAID), March 30, 2011.

276 Human Rights Watch interview with Ganesh Paudel, Department of Education, Kathmandu, April 7, 2011.

277 Human Rights Watch interview with Mukunda Dahal, founder of a day care center for children with developmental and intellectual disabilities and father of a 13-year-old with autism, Kathmandu, March 30, 2011.

Mothers of children with disabilities are often stigmatized or pitied both within the family and the community. As one mother of a nine-year-old autistic boy said, “Everybody expresses a sense of pity; ‘bichara’ is the Nepali word for, ‘Oh, pity him or her.’ I don’t think that.”²⁷⁸ Mothers of children with intellectual or development disabilities in particular told us how their mothers- and fathers-in-law did not speak to them for years and refused to interact with their children.

If children with disabilities are to be fully included in schools and the community, the government should raise public awareness of disability rights and inclusive education in particular. Such awareness-raising campaigns should also address bullying and teasing by teachers, family members and children.

278 Human Rights Watch interview with Kripa, mother of 6-year-old boy with autism, Kathmandu, March 29, 2011.

III. Abuses at Home: Cause and Consequence
of Lack of Access to Education

For many parents, the fact that their children with disabilities are not admitted to school presents profound dilemmas. Due to a lack of options available under the education system or information about these options, some parents believe that they have no choice but to lock their children with disabilities in a room or tie them to a post in order to fulfill other responsibilities (to take care of other children, do daily chores, work, etc.). Human Rights Watch research indicates that this is most often the case for children with intellectual, developmental, psychosocial or multiple disabilities.²⁷⁹

Human Rights Watch documented cases where children with disabilities are kept in a room, and provided with food and other daily needs. The children are not brought outside of the home. In one case, the mother of a 12-year-old boy with a developmental disability explained:

If we take him out, that’s the only time he’s out of the room. We take him to see the sun in the winter. Then he’s back in his room.²⁸⁰

In many cases, schools not only provide education and basic life skills for the children but serve as a respite for parents. Parents told Human Rights Watch that if their children are enrolled in school, it can support the family as a whole since the parents will have time to work on the land, prepare meals, do housework, etc.²⁸¹

Children with disabilities are also subjected to abuse by their families or caretakers. In some cases, children with disabilities are not given sufficient food and water in order to control their bowel movements when the parents are not at home. One disability

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advocate told Human Rights Watch about a case where a family starved a child with a disability to death.²⁸²

Parents question why they have such children and whether the children should live. In one case, the mother of a child with autism said: “If such children don’t know what to do, how to speak, can’t the state just give them a lethal injection to die?”²⁸³

Mayakuna, the mother of a six-year-old girl with a physical disability and possible developmental disability, explained to Human Rights Watch:

Sometimes I am very angry. I think: why is this type of child with me? I feel that I should give her something to eat so she can die. I want to slap her... without slapping her, how can I get cool [calm down]?²⁸⁴

Some children and parents told Human Rights Watch that they were subjected to beating and harassment by teachers, fellow classmates and parents.²⁸⁵ Nischal, a young man with a mild intellectual disability, told us:

When they harass me, they told me that I was not good. They also beat me. I felt
so badly. They beat me everyday—with their hand—on my back and my hand.²⁸⁶

Studies by UNICEF and other organizations in Nepal indicate that corporal punishment is common among all children both in schools and at home.²⁸⁷ There is no explicit prohibition of corporal punishment in schools in the 1971 Education Act or the 2002 Education

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Regulation, though severe punishment is prohibited under the Children’s Act.²⁸⁸ While corporal punishment harms all children, damaging their education and making it harder for them to thrive, students with some disabilities may find it particularly difficult to cope with such abuse.²⁸⁹

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When we initially discussed our strategy for the region, children with disabilities were consistently left out. It’s discrimination upon discrimination.

- Senior official, UNICEF, March 2011

International donors are uniquely placed to facilitate the full implementation of an inclusive education system. In addition to calling on the Nepal government to respect its human rights obligations to persons with disabilities, international donors should ensure that their own development assistance strategies and policies hold up to the principles of non-discrimination, inclusion and equality articulated in the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities and other treaties.

International donors including the World Bank, the Asian Development Bank, the European Union, the Australian Agency for International Development, the Danish International Development Agency, Japan International Cooperation Agency, the United Kingdom Department for International Development, the Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation, and UNICEF, among others, are investing in Nepal’s Education For All campaign and its efforts to reach the millennium development goals. For example, in April 2011, the World Bank reported that Nepal was allocated US$120 million from the Education for All-Fast Track Initiative’s Catalytic Fund, which many of these donors support.²⁹⁰ While funding for education is not particularly targeted for children with disabilities, donors have an obligation to ensure that this funding is distributed without any form of discrimination against children with disabilities.

290 World Bank, “Fast Track Initiative Catalytic Fund: Annual Progress Report 2010,” April

21, 2011,http://www.educationfasttrack.org/media/Misc./CF%20WB%20Progress%20report%20April%202011.pdf (accessed May 13, 2011). Disabled Peoples Organizations – Denmark, “Country Strategy of the Danish Council of Organization of Disabled People: October 2007 – September 2012,” September 12, 2007,http://www.disability.dk/partner-countries/nepal/country­strategy (accessed May 13, 2011). The Education for All - Fast Track Initiative (EFA FTI) is a global partnership between developing countries and donors, multilateral institutions, civil society organizations, and the private sector dedicated to ensuring that all children receive quality basic education. All low-income countries that demonstrate serious commitment to achieve universal primary education can join EFA FTI. World Bank, Fast Track Initiative, Frequently Asked

Questions, http://www.educationfasttrack.org/faqs/#faqTwo (accessed June 22, 2011). A breakdown of the disbursements by donor is available from World Bank, “Fast Track Initiative Catalytic Fund: Annual Progress Report 2010,” April 21, 2011, http://www.educationfasttrack.org/media/Misc./CF%20WB%20Progress%20report%20April%202011.pdf (accessed May 13, 2011), p. 85.

NORAD, in its 2009 evaluation of implementation of EFA goals in Nepal, concluded, “There apparently remain huge inequalities in provision, with schools serving the poorest and most marginalised communities being the least well staffed, resourced or supported.”²⁹¹

Funds from DANIDA are channeled directly through the Ministry of Education for implementation of the School Sector Support Program, capacity development, pilot projects and technical assistance.²⁹² In response to a request for the most updated assessment of how these funds are used, Human Rights Watch learned from DANIDA that it follows the government’s reporting procedures and does not have its own reporting requirements or monitoring mechanism. Instead, we were asked to contact the Nepal government to request the reports.²⁹³

Education strategies by national governments and international donors may use specific criteria to target services in ways that differ from a strictly equitable allocation of resources. However, given the lack of available, accessible and good quality education for children with disabilities compared with the general population, making concerted efforts to include children with disabilities in the education system meets both human rights and education targets.

Recognition of the importance of protecting human rights and promoting inclusive education is often expressed by international agencies, and people with disabilities are often cited as a “vulnerable” or “marginalized” population.²⁹⁴ Yet, despite this rhetorical commitment by the Nepalese government and international donors, limited efforts have been made to ensure that children with disabilities have access to quality and inclusive education on an equal basis as other children. Although there is increasing focus on Education For All in Nepal, children with disabilities remain a limited priority and of negligible concern. For example, NORAD noted that the Nepalese government has made

291 Norad, “Joint Evaluation of Nepal’s Education for All 2004-2009 Sector Programme,” March 2009, www.norad.no/en/_attachment/125144/binary/42348?download=true (accessed June 17, 2011), p. xiv.

292 Development assistance to the Government of Nepal for the education sector was 83 million Danish Krone (more than US$15 million) in 2009. Danida, “Extension of the Interim Strategy: Danish development assistance to Nepal 2008-2010,” December 2008, http://amg.um.dk/NR/rdonlyres/F1F11F6A-933D-4D00-9904- AE93E3EEE7AE/0/extendedinterimstrategy2008.pdf (accessed June 10, 2011).

293 Human Rights Watch correspondence with Mira Ghale Gurung, Education Officer, Embassy of Denmark, Kathmandu, June 20, 2011.

294 AusAid reports that "Despite the progress achieved in Asia and the Pacific, it is unlikely that many of the global goals for education will be met by 2015. Particular attention needs to be focused on improving access to education for children most likely to remain out of school or drop out after only a few years of schooling. This includes children in rural and remote areas, those with a disability and, more generally, those from disadvantaged groups and poorer families.” Australian Agency for International Development, "Annual thematic performance report: Education 2008-10," May 2010, http://www.ausaid.gov.au/publications/pdf/atpr-education-0809.rtf (accessed June 16, 2011), p. 14.

excellent progress in collecting information “including good attention to disaggregation.”²⁹⁵ However, much of the information is not disaggregated by disability so this remains a major gap in data collection.

UNICEF has made limited efforts to integrate children with disabilities; for example, by training engineers to design girl-friendly and disability-friendly toilets. However, staff admitted that children with disabilities are not specifically addressed in their overall strategy in Nepal because of a lack of expertise and data. A senior official at UNICEF told Human Rights Watch:

With great embarrassment, it’s an issue that we’re not very much engaged on. I have to be honest. Throughout the sector-wide approach appraisal, the issue was raised, but we never managed to make an objective with teeth, with realistic goals. Then it fell between the cracks.²⁹⁶

Save the Children provides teacher training in 43 districts across Nepal.²⁹⁷ Until 2009 they had a special project targeting children with disabilities in five districts, where they trained teachers in inclusive education methods. However, Save the Children has failed to integrate the disability component into the general teacher training program citing a lack of technical expertise in the other districts. The education officer for Save the Children told Human Rights Watch, “If we try to put disability in the main program, the issue of disability will be diluted.”²⁹⁸ The Save the Children Nepal country director, Brian Hunter, further clarified that it is their experience that “without a specific focus on integration of children with disabilities, inclusive education programs will not be effective in accomplishing this objective. More concerted efforts and specific focus is needed for effective integration.”²⁹⁹

The National Center for Education Development, an organ of the Ministry of Education, is currently in the process of revising the general teacher training materials, with support from Save the Children. The teacher training materials do not include adequate information on inclusive education methodologies, including how to teach children with diverse disabilities.³⁰⁰ Similarly, the Curriculum Development Center is undergoing a

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