Quake survivors living with disabilities ponder future

Latif Ashraf is considering the layout of his new house carefully. In the family’s tent, set up at their village 10 km outside the town of Bagh, one of the towns worst hit by the 8 October quake in Pakistani-administered Kashmir, he shows a new set of drawings to his wife Shanaz. The drawings show kitchen counters built low down on the wall, cupboards at floor level and sinks raised about a metre from the ground. The purpose is to enable Shahnaz, left paralyzed from the waist down after being trapped under the rubble of her home in the quake, to manage cooking, cleaning and the care of the couple’s two small children. “I am now very mobile in my wheelchair, but I cannot move far from the house. The village paths are obviously no place for a wheelchair,” Shahnaz told IRIN. She relies on help from her husband or other villagers for shopping, fetching water and many other routine tasks. Latif, a shopkeeper, intends to make an attempt to stay on in their village. “We spent many happy years here and our families live here,” he explained. However, if it proves impossible for Shahnaz to get about by herself within their new home or find employment, Latif is ready to move to a bigger town like Bagh, where he hopes there will be more facilities and greater support. Shahnaz is a trained teacher and had worked at a private school before the quake. That school has yet to re-open and Shahnaz is not certain if any institution will employ a person living with disabilities like her. “After all, most buildings are not designed for the handicapped, especially those on wheelchairs or crutches, so that could be a problem,” she conceded. Rahim is a mason from Battagram. “I have lost my left arm and obviously cannot work at construction sites. I have no idea how I will support my family in the future. So far, my brother, who works in Karachi, has been helping out, but he has his own family to think of.” The issues that Shahnaz and Rahim face are no different to those confronted by the many others left disabled by the quake. Though the number has still to be officially ascertained, estimates suggest tens of thousands have been affected by physical injury, leaving them unable to resume normal lives. A large number are children, some of whom have lost limbs and been fitted with artificial ones. Others will spend the rest of their lives in wheelchairs. “I do not know what the future will hold for us. Two of my children died in the quake. My eldest daughter, Fatima, 14, survived but she can only walk with crutches and has lost three fingers on her right hand. We wonder what will become of her, how she will survive in the future and whether anyone will marry her,” said Dawood Ameer, from the Shinkiari area in the North West Frontier Province (NWFP). Elsewhere too, across quake-hit areas, those with quake-induced disabilities wonder what lies ahead of them. There is as yet no official announcement regarding schooling for disabled children and many of the new buildings that have been erected since the quake are not accessible to those in wheelchairs.