Disabled serve in military for a day
Güncelleme Tarihi:
Daily News with wires
Oluşturulma Tarihi: Mayıs 15, 2009 00:00
ISTANBUL - People with disabilities in the provinces of Tokat, Bursa and Karabük have become soldiers for a day as part of a week-long initiative for people with disabilities, which included various other activities in several places.
Meanwhile, Meral Tamer, in her column in daily Milliyet yesterday, opened for discussion that the criteria for the statistics about the handicapped population in Turkey should be changed.
Recalling that the new State Minister Selma Aliye Kavaf said in her speech ahead of the week for the disabled that 12.3 percent of the whole population was handicapped, Tamer said not only the minister but state officials including the president and prime minister have used the same numbers for years, according to the calculation of the Turkish Statistics Institution, or TÜİK.
However, TÜİK’s calculation is based on the definition of handicapped used by the United Nations and World Health Organization, which includes people with chronic diseases, leading to an increase in the number people recognized as disabled.
TÜİK stats
The percentage of the population with orthopedic, visual, aural, speech and mental disabilities is only 2.6 percent, Tamer wrote, based on the statistics of TÜİK. The remaining 9.7 percent includes those people with chronic diseases, people with blood pressure problems, visual problems and people over 60, she wrote.
"Minister Kavaf, in your speech you said 156,000 disabled people received nursing support while 207,000 disabled children have special education. These numbers are meaningless when you said that the disabled population was 8.5 million. However, when you said we have 1.8 million disabled people according to the real situation, substantial success occurred," Tamer wrote.
Recalling that the new State Minister Selma Aliye Kavaf said in her speech ahead of the week for the disabled that 12.3 percent of the whole population was handicapped, Tamer said not only the minister but state officials including the president and prime minister have used the same numbers for years, according to the calculation of the Turkish Statistics Institution, or TÜİK.
However, TÜİK’s calculation is based on the definition of handicapped used by the United Nations and World Health Organization, which includes people with chronic diseases, leading to an increase in the number people recognized as disabled.
TÜİK stats
The percentage of the population with orthopedic, visual, aural, speech and mental disabilities is only 2.6 percent, Tamer wrote, based on the statistics of TÜİK. The remaining 9.7 percent includes those people with chronic diseases, people with blood pressure problems, visual problems and people over 60, she wrote.
"Minister Kavaf, in your speech you said 156,000 disabled people received nursing support while 207,000 disabled children have special education. These numbers are meaningless when you said that the disabled population was 8.5 million. However, when you said we have 1.8 million disabled people according to the real situation, substantial success occurred," Tamer wrote.