Social Exclusion of People with Disability in Bangladesh: Dimensions and Challenges

Abstract

This paper is an outcome of reviewing different dimensions of social exclusion and challenges faced by people with disabilities (PWD) in Bangladesh and suggest some policy guidelines to promote inclusion of PWD into the development process. This paper is based on secondary sources of data and therefore, government, non-government organization’s study report, policy documents, journal articles, statistical report, research findings etc. were consulted to collect data and construct the paper. The paper describes the social exclusion of Bangladeshi PWD in the six broad areas e.g. income and assets, employment, education, health and social security, social relationship and recreation. Therefore, some key areas of policy implications are outlined for inclusion of PWD in Bangladesh which include the prospective way to address poverty, adopt active labor market policy, promoting social services and encouraging community based rehabilitation, providing counseling and other support services and utilizing the vision of user involvement etc.

Exploring Access to Social Protection for People with Disabilities in Bangladesh

“…Several factors may underlie these findings [31]. As disabled individuals age increased, they may face greater challenges in terms of their physical or economic well-being, making them more vulnerable and increasing the likelihood of their inclusion in social protection programs [20]. Moreover, with the increasing age, they may be able to negotiate with the local leaders or program implementers to include them in the programs, otherwise they are mostly unidentified [7, 43].…”

“…The prevalence of predominant socio-cultural norms in LMICs, which often attribute disabilities to curses and perceive them as permanent burdens, further exacerbates their situation [18, 19]. This situation is particularly pronounced in Bangladesh [7, 20], where approximately 3% of the total population is classified as disabled, and such misconceptions are widespread.…”

“…However, despite these challenges and the substantial number of individuals with disabilities in Bangladesh, it remains unclear what percentage of them are covered by existing social protection programs and what specific forms of support they receive [21, 22]. Furthermore, the types and varieties of social protection programs available for individuals with disabilities remain undocumented [20]. The limited estimates provided by the Ministry of Social Welfare of Bangladesh do not align with the true prevalence of disabilities and solely account for the support they offer [23].…”

Stakeholders’ perception of accessible tourism implementation based on corporate sustainability and responsibility: a SEM-based investigation

“…However, from the standpoint of the SDGs, viewing AT as solely a developed-country issue is unworthy, given that 80% of PwDs live in developing or less developed countries (Polat and Hermans, 2016). For instance, in Bangladesh, about 15 million people, or 9% of the overall population, have disabilities (of whom 29.6% are completely incapacitated, 43.7% have a complex disability, 26.7% are partially disabled and 500,000 have multiple disabilities) (Hussain, 2021). In contrast, the country has seen a rapid increase in domestic travellers, mostly as a consequence of the increased spare time, educated population growth and increase in disposable income (Amin, 2017; Hassan and Ramkissoon, 2020).…”

“…Moreover, the tourism master plan for the next 20 years is expected to furnish the industry with more infrastructure to attract more international tourists besides domestic tourists to posit travel and leisure as the third major economic sector after textiles and remittances (Islam et al , 2021). However, PwDs are still mostly excluded from recreational activities in Bangladesh (Hussain, 2021), so stakeholder-based strategies are needed for well-balanced developed tourism in Bangladesh (Islam et al , 2021).…”