Call for counting people with disabilities in Census 2021

Staff Reporter:Disability Alliance on SDGs Bangladesh, a network of 26 national and international organisations working for promoting disability rights in Bangladesh, has called on the government of Bangladesh for making country’s sixth Population and Housing Census -2021 disability inclusive.
The alliance has made this appeal to the government in a webinar titled “Making Disability Inclusive 6th Population and Housing Census 2021″ on Wednesday.
Planning Minister MA Mannan attended the webinar as the chief guest with Ghose Subobrata, Deputy Director General of Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics, attended the event as the special guest with Monsur Ahmed Choudhury, Trustee, Impact Foundation, in the chair.
The alliance has also put forward a few specific recommendations to the government to make the PHC 2021 disability inclusive.
The key-note paper presented by Ayon Debnath, Advocacy Coordinator at Sightsavers, unveiled that the existing data available in the country as to people with disabilities is backdated and needs to be upgraded through the population and house census 2021 along with gathering disability disaggregated data of all Bangladeshis.
Referring to the census as a golden opportunity for Bangladesh to count all Bangladeshi citizens, he also stressed collecting disability disaggregated data based on the legal obligations outlined in the Persons with Disabilities Rights and Protection Act, 2013 and the National Action Plan on Disability 2019 of the country.
Planning Minister MA Mannan said, “The government of Bangladesh is highly sensitive to ensuring the rights of the people with disabilities in Bangladesh. The Persons with Disabilities Rights and Protection Act 2013 has been enacted and the Action Plan on Disability has been prepared by the government in 2019.”
He said that the planning ministry and the BBS were putting and will put efforts to gather the data of the people with disabilities in the upcoming census 2021 and consult with organisations of persons with disabilities.
Amrita Rejina Rozario, Convener of the Disability Alliance on SDGs Bangladesh and Country Director of Sightsavers, said, “Bangladesh is graduating from the category of Least Developed Countries to become a developing country. This huge milestone boosted the confidence of the government and development actors to transform the country into an upper middle-income country by 2031 and a high-income country by 2041. However, to achieve this milestone in its true sense, there is no alternative to gathering disability disaggregated data and removing discrepancy of disability data that still exists in the country.”
The questionnaire for the PHC 2021 data collection has mentioned six non-mutually exclusive types of persons with disabilities whereas the Persons with Disabilities Rights and Protection Act 2013 has defined twelve types of disabilities.
Highlighting this point, Albert Mollah, Executive Director of Access Bangladesh Foundation, called on the government to align the questionnaire with the Act and produce a braille version of the same.
Ghose Subobrata welcomed the recommendations made and proposed signing an MoU between the BBS and the Disability Alliance to exchange more technical cooperation to make the census more disability inclusive.