Their right is our right > 영어토론방

• 수정
• 삭제

• 목록

• 페이스북 공유
• 트위터 공유
• 구글+ 공유
• 

Korea started welfare assistance for the disabled in 1981. The 31st United Nations General Assembly declared 1981 as year of the disabled, and it recommended that all member nations guarantee the rights of the disabled. In Korea, the government fixed April 20 as the official day for the disabled. Over the years, how can we assess Korea's welfare work for the disabled? What progress has been made and how much have the lives of the disabled improved?

There are 536 welfare facilities in Korea that are affiliated organizations of the Ministry of Health and Welfare (MOHW). Of this number, 144 are located in Seoul. There are 5,328 people who benefit from all these facilities. But what we should be concerned about is not the welfare system but the convenience these facilities afford the disabled.

Have you heard of the right of transfer for the disabled? It means the right of the disabled to move about without physical obstacles when using public transportation and facilities. Korean laws guarantee this right and budget has been set aside for this. Still, many disabled are not able fully to exercise this right of transfer.

According to a survey by the MOHW that investigated the actual living conditions of the disabled, about 53.5 percent of the disabled who were interviewed expressed discontent over the lack of convenient facilities in the transportation system. Inability to move around the city means that the opportunities for social activities are decreased.

At present, public facilities for the disabled include lifts and elevators in subway stations, voice information system on buses, and sidewalk tiles for the blind, among other things. While these facilities are helpful, the general consensus among the disabled is that these facilities are not enough for them to feel completely safe in getting around the city.

The lifts that are installed in subway stations have many problems with safety. After an incident in 2001 in Oido station where one disabled person died after falling off a malfunctioning lift, arguments over such facilities surfaced once more. Now, a disabled person who takes the subway lift must be accompanied by a station worker, making the process longer, which takes 20 to 30 minutes. Despite all these efforts, there are still 168 stations with no lifts. Even with the use of elevators, which is still the safest and most convenient for the disables, there are only 78 stations that have them. Thus, moving around subway stations is excessively restrictive.

This restriction is also felt by blind members of the population. The special blocks of tiles on sidewalks that lead to subway stations are supposed to help them find their destination easily. But once at the station, the special tiles are placed very close to the tracks, making many blind passengers feel anxious and fearful. In addition, many of them have difficulty in finding their way to toilets because the special tiles leading to them are missing in many stations. These are just a few of several inconveniences that the disabled have to go through when using public transportation. The problem is so grave that a recent survey revealed that only 6.8 percent of the total population of the disabled use the subway. One can imagine how many of the disabled are robbed of their right of free transfer.

If using the subway is terribly inconvenient for many disabled passengers, using the bus is more worse. For wheelchair-bound passengers it is impossible to use the bus because there is no proper mechanism in place to help them. For blind passengers, the voice information system helps them while on the bus when waiting at the bus stop, they often need to depend on the kindness of strangers to help them get on the right bus.

Therefore, when the disabled travel around, they usually depend on taxis. As a way to encourage the disabled to drive their own cars, the Korean government lowered car registration fees and license taxes and gave them the option to change from fuel to LPG in order to save costs. This is a great incentive for the disabled who can afford to buy cars but for low-income people, this hardly makes any difference.
It is without a doubt that more can still be done to improve the lives of the disabled members of our society. Many obstacles still exist and foremost among them is the prejudice of some people against the disabled. A great number of people still think that disability of a person came with birth so they treated as a kind of weakness. However, another MOHW survey showed that 89.4 percent of all disabled had post-natal disability. Still, whether inborn or not, a person's disability should not be a factor in deciding how well we treat a person. We are all equal, thus when we protect the rights of the disabled, we are also protecting our own.

Question
1. Where you live? Do you feel that facilities in your area are equipped adequately for disabled people?
How do you think about that?
2. There are many disabled people that could be dependent in public.
What do you think?, and what is the problem ?
3. How do you think about 'Right of the disabled' ? and how do we keep it?
4. Public transportations for disabled have many problems,
What should be changed to resolve these problems?

이 글은「대학연합영어토론동아리」www.pioneerclub.com에서 제공하는 영어토론 정보입니다.