CG Stevenson with members of the Thai Association for the Disabled
Riding public transportation in a wheelchair; CG Stevenson and daughter Hadley on the London Eye
Consul General’s Corner
December 13, 2011
On our first trip back to Bangkok with small children, I was dismayed by the city's infrastructure. Most BTS stops were accessible via long flights of stairs, with no elevator in sight, and many escalators were reached via a few stairs first. Pushing babies in strollers was a challenge, and we quickly resorted to carrying our children in slings rather than pushing them around the city.
In the United States, by contrast, nearly all public buildings are accessible via ramps. This access was not created to help families, but rather was a feature of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) of 1990. The ADA recognized that physical and mental disabilities don’t diminish one’s right to fully participate in all aspects of society, which includes convenient access to offices and retail centers for people in wheelchairs.
Protection under the law must be accompanied by societal acceptance, and the U.S. Congress recognized that people with disabilities were being discriminated against. Like the Civil Rights Act of the 1960s, the Americans with Disabilities Act was meant to change the way society as a whole viewed people with disabilities. I believe it has. Americans are now accustomed to seeing Braille signs in elevators, ramps into office blocks, and the availability of subtitles on television for the hearing impaired. We aren't surprised to see someone walking down the street accompanied by a seeing-eye dog or dismounting from a car into a wheelchair. We’ve come so far that one of my former colleagues here at the U.S. Consulate in Chiang Mai was legally blind. He was also a fantastic linguist and very effective officer.
Such change takes time. In many countries, a disability was meant to be hidden away, and people are unused to seeing any physical imperfection. A 2002 World Bank report on Thailand’s treatment of the disabled said that according to Buddhist teachings, disability is the result of sins in a past life (rather than bad luck, as many view it in the West). This viewpoint could prevent the physically disabled from fully joining society.
In some countries, there is so much imperfection that society has no choice but to embrace it, such as the victims of land mines in Cambodia or polio victims in parts of the developing world. When traveling through Ethiopia, I found the sight of boys playing soccer on crutches strangely uplifting as they were fully participating in life. With this in mind, the United Nations adopted the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities in December 2006. The Convention is the culmination of decades of work by the United Nations to change attitudes towards the disabled, transforming them from “objects” of charity to “subjects” with rights to live an independent life.
At the Chiang Mai Creative City event co-hosted by the Consulate in November, I spoke with representatives from the Thai Association for the Disabled. They told me that Thai society had made great strides in the past decade, but that infrastructure remained a challenge. They appreciated the Consulate’s entrance ramp, making it easy for them to join the event, as well as ramps and lifts in newer buildings around town.
The importance of accommodating those with disabilities was brought home to me at the end of September, when my eldest daughter was injured in a freak playground accident. A heavy timber beam fell on her, snapping her spine in two and damaging her spinal cord. At the age of 13, she is unlikely to walk again. My husband and I had to get educated quickly on wheelchairs and accessibility issues to make her life easier. Our daughter is a very determined and strong-willed person, and she has been working hard over the past two months to regain her strength and learn to do everything with her arms. We hope to see her out of the hospital by the end of year.
Given the language barrier here in Thailand, as well as different societal views, we made the difficult decision to leave Chiang Mai early and move our family to the United States. From the wheelchair-bound character on Glee to blind singers Ray Charles and Stevie Wonder, America is used to the disabled. Our daughter will attend a middle school experienced with wheelchairs, following the recent graduation of a student with spina bifida. She has a long road ahead of her, but we know that she can live an independent life. That’s what disability laws and conventions are designed to protect.
This will be my last weekly column before I depart for Washington, D.C. I will long remember my experiences here in Chiang Mai and the wonderful people I’ve met. Thank you, dear readers, for your support and interest.