Section 10: Family Matters
- Note #45
- AIR 1969 Cal 304
- Return
No law or policy has a clear-cut statement that prohibits discrimination against persons with disabilities on matters relating to marriage, family, parenthood and relationships on an equal basis with others. Especially with regard to persons with psychiatric disabilities, the plethora of cases applying for divorce gets firm support from individual personal laws all which support that insanity can be a ground for divorce. However in particular cases, the Court exhibited sensitivity - for example in the Anima Roy vs. Prabodh Mohan Roy 45 the psychiatrist who examined her recognized that she could have contracted the illness at any time in the course of two month or five years.
Perhaps standards of norms for investigation by psychiatrists could be reexamined.
As regards the right of persons with disabilities to retain their fertility and provide age-appropriate information, reproductive and family planning education, women with disabilities seem to be especially vulnerable to having their rights infringed. Women in institutions are subject to hysterectomies, as the 1984 case Hysterectomies of Mentally Challenged Women that was authorized by the government of Maharashtra demonstrates. Women with disabilities are perceived as children when parents come for treatment for the disability and are rarely seen in obstetric and gynaecological settings as adults. The reproductive health of women with disabilities in another grey area, which does not even find a mention in any programmes.
There is no mention of reproductive rights of men with disabilities in any planning documents.
Regarding rendering appropriate assistance to persons with disabilities in the performance of their child-rearing responsibilities, a programme to provide financial support to women with disabilities to hire services to look after their children is mooted. Such support will be limited to two children for a period not exceeding two years. The provision does not extend to men with disability and this is a serious lapse.
While there is no law that ensures the right of children, regardless of their disabilities or the disabilities of their parents to live with their own family, there have been extensive provisions for hostels for persons with disabilities, based on their disability. While on the one hand it might look as if it's a good scheme, on the other hand, it could result in further exclusion of persons with disabilities.