UNICEF official advocates for 150m disabled children across world

A senior official from the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) commissioned with advancing the rights of an estimated 150 million disabled children around the world, has called on the international community to take swift action in decreasing discrimination against them. In a recent interview with Xinhua, Rosangela Berman Bieler, chief of UNICEF's disability section of the program division, voiced a determination to combat negative stigmas projected on to disabled children. "A child with a disability in the first place faces a lot of discrimination and stigma from society and this is one of the things that impact it the most -- the life of this child," Bieler explained ahead of the publication of the World's Children's 2013 report. ESTIMATED FIGURES This year's children's report released Thursday focuses on engaging more country governments as well as closing the inequality gap between children with disabilities and the rest of the global children population. Moreover, the report highlights the importance of crumbling barriers and practicing inclusion in communities around the world. The report said, "in many countries, responses to the situation of children with disabilities are largely limited to institutionalization, abandonment and neglect," which are factors that have also impacted statistical data collection. The available statistical evidence is only an estimate. "Yes, so there are statistics from the World Health Organization (WHO), for example from the last World Disability Study in 2011 using data that is saying 93 million children with disabilities under the age of 14 exist in the world," said Bieler, a former journalist in Brazil. In reality, she said, the number could go up to 150 million children today. The causes of this pronounced figure are "independent of poverty," Bieler said, recounting her own personal experience as a disabled youth, using a wheel chair to go around. "I grew up in Brazil and I had a car accident when I was 18 and I lived in Rio de Janeiro surrounded by favelas and the slums in Rio," she said. "If I would have grown up in a slum, I would probably survive one year with my disability," she said, adding "Instead I am here 38 years using a wheel chair already and I had access to health, education, sanitation, and rehabilitation." According to her, data collection is a very big challenge on children with disabilities for many different reasons, and one is that countries are not ready to offer services. "Many times the government just does not count children with disabilities not only because they are hidden at home but because they do not count really in society," she said. DISABLED CHILDREN HAVE LIMITED ACCESS During the interview, Bieler elaborates on the word hidden and describes it as concealing a child from society and the rest of the household. "Parents are ashamed basically of having a child with disabilities and the community many times never knows this child because the child is hidden at home and not allowed to go out," she said. "This is very common," she said, adding the family's shame can also generate more problems for the child, such as culture punishment. The UNICEF official also highlighted the need for disabled children to have increased access to education and child development care. Opening up this process to everyone "will also allow them to grow up with their own siblings instead of institutions that will separate them from their family and their communities," she said. "This is a big issue and one of the things that UNICEF focuses on is the need for de-institutionalizing children with disabilities," she said. "In many countries we are working for example with the de- institutionalization and not allowing institutionalization from 0 to 3 years old because in some cultures if you have a child with disabilities, you immediately have the child go into the institution," she said. "This is a very serious thing and very typical situation for a child with a disability," she said. "Institutions mean neglect in terms of food, nutrition and even in terms of education and health issues as well." Children with disabilities need "access to all the regular things a child needs to grow up", she noted.