Marginalization of persons with disabilities during the pandemic

Binendri Perera, Temporary Assistant Lecturer at the Faculty of Law, University of Colombo. Email: binendri@law.cmb.ac.lk 

Niro Kandasamy, Postdoctoral development fellow, University of Melbourne. Email: Niro.Kandasamy@unimelb.edu.au

Karen Soldatic, Associate Professor, Western Sydney University. Email: K.Soldatic@westernsydney.edu.au 

This artwork was drawn by Ms. M. H. Rafika, from Nuwara Eliya, Sri Lanka. Sri Lanka took a militaristic approach to combat COVID-19, wherein the military was at the forefront and infiltrated the civil mechanisms in tracking the infected individuals, quarantine processes and regulation of public movement. This approach also resulted in emphasizing upon ableism and highlighting the vulnerability of groups such as persons with disabilities in a manner that affronted their dignity and self-esteem. The country was under an island-wide curfew for about two months as a measure to prevent the spread of COVID-19.

The curfew, while being necessary to deal with the public health crisis, impinged upon many rights and freedoms of the people and drastically affected their livelihoods. People have had to rely on the delivery services to obtain the essentials during this period. The delivery arrangements were either state sponsored services which travelled ad hoc in different areas or privately arranged based on online orders. Whenever the curfew was lifted people could venture out to buy the essentials. However, there were long queue and congestion to access these services as the curfew was lifted only for a few hours.

These restrictions on freedom of movement and access to essential services had an aggravated impact on persons with disabilities. They faced heightened vulnerability from being unable to buy the medicines they needed through the limited public and privately made arrangements. Women with disabilities faced unique challenges in obtaining sanitary items. The infrastructural environment that is generally inaccessible to persons with disabilities became further hostile due to the emergency situation arising from COVID-19. The artist captures the feelings of neglect, incapacity, anguish, and smallness that the persons with various disabilities experienced as they had to watch people use their able bodies as the advantage to access the essential items and services. While the people could go out to the public during short reprieves of curfew, persons with disabilities had to remain locked inside because Sri Lanka’s response to COVID19 failed to accommodate their needs and respect their rights, dignity and autonomy. The artist highlights this marginalization of persons with disabilities during the pandemic. She paints their unseen agony at the persistent inequality that persons with disabilities face even in accessing the most basic services.