Seeing that the government is spitting out measures aimed to help the handicapped and how the media is calling for greater interest and support for handicapped members of our society as well, it must be Handicapped Day (April 20). The government has rarely kept its promises, yet again it has come up with ideas called "Hope for the Handicapped Project" and "Able 2010." Media outlets that have been critical of the expansion of public services are lamenting the fact that the ratio of the country's budget for handicapped citizens compared to the GDP is only one tenth (0.27%) of Organisation for Economic Co-Operation and Development member states.
The reason it feels no guilt as it talks big every year at around this time is because it sees the issue of the handicapped as a "personal problem" and not a social one. A person's handicap has personal causes, so responsibility for it belongs with the individual in question. To people who think that way, handicapped persons are objects of sympathy.
However, 86 percent of handicapped persons become injured in automobile, medical, and other accidents. An increasing number of inborn handicaps are resulting from social factors such as water, air, and food contamination. As long as people live in a polluted environment and a world where the fittest survive, anyone can become handicapped. Therefore, society needs to bear more of the responsibility.
The government estimates there are 2.15 million handicapped citizens, one in every eight households. Handicapped organizations say their number is more like 4 million, or one in every four households, which would mean that every family has a handicapped cousin. Their situation is not "someone else's business," it's everyone's business.
No society can avoid having people become handicapped. Those in our society carry that cross for the rest of us. Society's reward for that is truly shameful. They experience unemployment at three times the level (10%) of others, and enjoy only half of average household income. That is not how things should be in a society that functions properly.
The Hankyoreh, 20 April 2006.
[Translations by Seoul Selection]
[Editorial] Handicapped Bear the Cross for the Rest of Us |
