Why are disabled people treated unequally in Gilgit Baltistan – Where are the Youths?

Gilgit Baltistan is the home of 1.5 million citizens, from Hunza to Gilgit, from Skradu to Kharamang. Gilgit Baltistan is the home of the students which have studied from the MIT’s, Harvard’s, Oxford’s but still there is a lack of social and human development.

Discussion

To limit to the disability cause, one would envisage that a scholar or a well-educate person would have by now opened further education institutes for disabled people. Not in the sense of competing with Quaid-E-Azam or NUST but an effort like the Gilgit Baltistan’s Goodwill Movement for higher educational needs. Ofcourse, there is the Mehnaz Fatima Foundation but not for older PWDs.

There is the argument that many people may not have personal experience with disabilities or may not be educated about the challenges disabled individuals face, and Some people may view disabled individuals as overly dependent or burdensome, which can lead to negative attitudes and mistreatment. Then, by that logic, the UK or the US should not have adopted the ADA Act or the Equality Act 2012 : we would all have been violating political rights then of disabled people.

It is how awareness is constructed within the family. Since Gilgit Baltistan has a traditional family mindset, culturally that is acceptable: the conclusions of Sociologist Talcott Parsons (1969) fit in trying to explain this phenomenon. He claims that human personalities are made and not born. They are created through the process of socialisation. The main agent of primary socialisation is the family. 

Conclusion.

If one sticks to Parsons ‘ theory, the idea of youths being lost or disconnected boils down to the family structure. For organisations like the Gilgit Baltistan’s Goodwill Movement, it is a matter of how much we can interfere in the family system which portays disabled people in a wrongly manner.

The question of awareness is limited by this major factor.