Social Exclusion against People with Disabilities

in Indonesia

A. Introduction

In 2011, Indonesia ratified the CRPD or Convention on the

Rights of People with Disabilities, four years after it

was signed in 2007. The ratification has not brought any

improvement towards disabilities law but has produced a

review of the term impairment usage changed into people

with disabilities. This terminology changes following the

paradigm change of disability from a welfare approach

towards the fulfillment of human rights. However, the law

that guarantees the rights of people with disabilities

had not been ratified until now, while the old previous

law has not accommodated CRPD. As consequences, the

disability scheme rights in Indonesia have been

inadequate to provide protection to them .

1

Nevertheless, there have been a number of

initiatives to accommodate the right-based approach and

promoting social inclusive. However, the application is

still in tatters, to be said . The problem is caused by

the common law in Indonesia still adopt the universality

principle of human right. The pluralisation character as

set forth in the CRPD has not been accommodated in law,

regulations and policies. This situation is in line with

the experience of Cambodia, who have signed the CRPD, but

do not have the laws that refer to the CRPD yet . This

law is leaving a hole in disabilities protection policies

such as physical access problems due to the high cost of

physical infrastructure adjustment. As well as Ireland

experience that has a law for the protection of people

with disabilities that refer to CRPD. However, there is a

conflict with the other laws that generally prior the

universality principle, such as the issue of legal

capacity .

2

This paper will provide an explanation of social

exclusion and disadvantage suffered by group of people

with disabilities through redistribution and recognition

perspective. This paper will focus on the social

exclusion experienced by people with disabilities in

Indonesia. Although there are many elements that lead to

social exclusion in the disabled community, this paper

will focus on three emerging social exclusion problems

experienced by people with disabilities namely education,

working, and social assistance.

This paper has three key arguments. First, in the

education sector, recognition runs better but imbalanced

redistribution. Second, in the employment sector, group

of people with disabilities in Indonesia get poor

recognition and inadequate redistribution. Third, the

social exclusion in the poverty reduction still occurs

although the group of people with disabilities gets

affirmation of redistribution through social assistance3

programs. However, the lack of redistribution is occurred

because of lack of recognition of difference experiences

that faces by different disability.

B. Context

In the past decade, the disabilities in Indonesia are

commonly called diffabel. This term is from the English

term ‘different-ability’. The appearance of this term is

the fruit of the struggle of activists concerning on

disabilities and non-government organization that

advocates the rights of the people with disabilities.

Slowly this term gets recognition from government and

public. Although the new terms implies as the gate to

open a new understanding of disability as a human being

who has the same right that has a different capacity,

however in fact it does not necessarily change the policy4

more disabled friendly. Likewise, there is a strong view

among the community that disability is disadvantaged

groups, unproductive and imperfect .

In Indonesia, the number of the disabled population

based on official data provided by the State around

600.000 . This amount is not large if it is compared to

the population of Indonesia, but the actual number of

disabilities can be confirmed larger because of the poor

data collection of disabilities in Indonesia. The high

rate of disability is triggered by the persistence of the

incidence of polio, leprosy, stroke, medical malpractice,

lack of vitamin A, the high incidence of natural

disasters, and the impact of armed conflicts that have

occurred in some areas .

Although the government has signed the UN Convention

on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities then ratifies

it and approves the Law No. 4 of 1997 on Persons with

5

Disabilities, but the content of the law is still weak

because it does not reflect the recognition of the State

on right of person with disability. The government still

uses the term ‘person with disabilities’ as well as

‘impairment’ which amplifies the negative stigma of group

of people with disabilities .

As mandated by law on the rights of persons with

disabilities, the Ministry of Social Affairs gets a

mandate as a focal point to manage disability issues. The

Act also mandates the ministry to provide social

assistance and maintenance of social welfare for people

with disabilities. However, the paradigm used by the

ministry still puts the disability as a social problem.

Consequently, people with disabilities are still

perceived differently from other people with the

recognition of the dignity of humanity. That is reflected

in a number of government policies in education,

employment and social assistance that are still failing6

to encourage social justice through redistribution and

recognition of the rights of persons with disabilities .

Initiatives to reduce social exclusion for people

with disabilities cannot be separated from the strong

insistence by international and non-government

organizations that the country start to be consistent in

applying the ideas and principles of CRPD. The form of

the initiatives can be programs, and policies considered

to be able to guarantee the welfare of persons with

disabilities, promote equality, reduce stigma and

discrimination against people with disabilities. On

education field in this past decade, the idea of

inclusive education began to emerge where people with

disabilities who are in the age of primary education have

equal access to attend classes in public schools. In

previous time, people with disabilities are forced to

attend special schools for people with disabilities

separated from them who do not have disabilities. In the7

field of livelihood, there are clauses in labor law that

require employers to recruit staff people with

disabilities. In poverty reduction, there are specific

social assistance for people with severe disabilities .

C. Exclusion of disability groups in the three sectors

Social justice can only be achieved if there are

redistribution and recognition of identity . In the

following explanation, Indonesia's efforts to achieve

social justice for persons with disabilities are reached

by tattered efforts in bringing redistribution and

recognition into policy. This paper will show that

situation focus in three areas, namely education, social

assistance, and livelihood.

C.1. Education Sector

In the law number 20 that released on 2003 about National

Education System implied obligation to provide specific

education for people with disabilities. This rule is8

expressed in the underlying policy that requires every

level of education to accept students without physical or

mental discrimination. In fact, only 10% of the 1.5

million children with disabilities have access to

education .

The ideas of non-discrimination and equality are

derived from the universality of human rights principle

that have brought into the law of national education

system. To accommodate the disability groups for not to

be excluded from the education system, a regulation

requiring each level of education to open access for the

disabled was made. In fact, this rule is not enough

because of its inability to reduce the number of people

with disabilities who are excluded from the formal

education system. There are still many schools reject

student with disabilities because the lack of a capable

teacher, lack of accessibility and feel that people with

disabilities are 'other' different figure with them .9

“Othering” in education occurs when schools,

teachers and students in mainstream schools discriminate

and do social exclusion so that people with disabilities

lose their access to public services because of the

stigma attached to them. The result of this situation is

that students with disabilities should attend special

schools that categorized based on the type of the

disability. The other problem is, discrimination in the

job market still exist due to the level of education that

has been achieved through a school for students with

special needs are not acknowledged . "Othering" is an

injustice cultural behavior that reflects the knowledge

on the impairment and disabilities causes is still

minimum .

To correct this situation, step that taken by the

government is implementing inclusive education .

Inclusive education is a global phenomenon to tackle

educational discrimination experienced by some groups of10

children that excluded from mainstream education. It is

an affirmative step to reduce discrimination and promote

equality. The government is working to improve the

infrastructure in selected schools, improving the

physical and non-physical access, preparing teachers and

comfortable learning environment for student with

disabilities. Children with disabilities are being taught

together with friends who do not have disabilities .

Vanessa Silla et al., said the success of inclusive

education is determined by the total support from the

government because it requires huge resources, teachers

who have had a good learning experience. Implementation

problem of inclusive education are not only economic,

social and resource constraints of teachers, but also

have to face the cultural problem, in plural cultural

setting, inclusive education find a bigger challenge.

Until 2007, there were 4.929 public and private

special schools for student with disabilities; the11

government has only one-third of the number of schools

for children with special needs. The numbers of inclusive

schools in Indonesia are far from sufficient to cover

children with special needs. Based on Indonesian

population data, it is estimated that about 12% of

children with disabilities attend school. The number of

people with disabilities in inclusive elementary and

junior high school around 14.898. From total number, 90%

of the data is students with disabilities at elementary

education, so there are only 10% of inclusive elementary

school students that can access up to junior high school.

The Numbers of students with disabilities who attend

elementary/ junior inclusive school was only 10% of the

number of people with disabilities who signed up for

school. This data indicates exclusion and disability-

based discrimination have started during the registration

process at the school. Then inclusive school that is

12

designed to reduce discrimination and exclusion has

failed in protecting the right of disabled student .

The distance of inclusive school is not always near

to where people with disabilities live. Geographical

access problems and the cost of transportation is an

obstacle for people with disabilities to attend school.

Whereas people with disabilities come from poor families,

to spend extra transport costs, or a shuttle assistance

will put additional economic burden for the family.

Despite the affirmation of the government, the obstacles

for people with disabilities to access education are much

more complicated than those who do not have disabilities.

This situation is justified by a survey by Ministry of

Social Affairs that showed 60% of people with

disabilities do not go to school. While from 40% who

attend school turn out their education level were only at

the primary .

13

Efforts to improve the recognition then execute

multiculturalism projects in education through inclusive

schools are still not able yet to fulfil social justice

when the redistribution aspect is not strengthened. When

the government allocates resources and systems for the

implementation of inclusive education, the policies hole

comes from not the strengthening of the capacity of

families with disabilities through equitable economic re-

distribution system. The injustice of Inclusive education

in Indonesia comes from the lack recognition does

correlate with poor distribution. Then, the economic

weakness and the lack of culture are tied each other in

creating the social injustice. As Fraser and Honnet said,

social justice is to accommodate recognition and

redistribution as well .

C.2. Social Assistance Sector

14

As what Fraser said, an understanding of social justice

still ignores recognition aspects and is economic

redistribution centric. The situation is appropriate to

describe the concept of social justice for people with

disabilities in Indonesia; the concept is still limited

to the concept of redistribution with emphasizing on the

economic category.

Since the signing of the convention on disabilities,

the Indonesian government has some social assistance

schemes for the people with disabilities . In 2006, the

government provided social assistance in the form of cash

transfer programs in which groups of persons with

disabilities are one of the categories of beneficiaries.

The program runs for 8 years. This program is, then,

discontinued in the following year 2006 because the

Indonesian poverty reduction strategies are changed based

on economic criteria of poverty. Indonesia has 4 clusters

of poverty reduction. The first cluster consists of15

social assistance programs in the form of charity, as

well as conditional cash transfers. The second cluster

for community empowerment program. The third cluster is

intended for small and medium businesses, as well as the

fourth cluster, is additional clusters that mainly

provide access to housing, affordable electricity, and

water. In poverty reduction programs, there are rules

that the recipient of the program of cluster 1 to 3 can

only be beneficiaries of one cluster only.

Social assistance programs for people with severe

disabilities are included in the first cluster. This

social assistance is reserved for persons with severe

disabilities by providing cash assistance amounting to Rp

300,000 or around AUD $30 per person per month for a

year. In 2009, the number recipients of this program were

around 17,000 people . These criteria lead to at least

two problems for people with disabilities:

16

1. It is not only persons with severe disabilities

who need social assistance. The elderly or new people

with disabilities with the disability situations that

make them impossible to work or excluded from the

formal job, for instance, paraplegia also need social

assistance and insurance as well

2. People with non-severe disabilities also

excluded from poverty cluster one or two. It is

because the very poor people with disabilities do not

meet the poverty indicator defined by statistics

bureau. Then, they do not get their right to get

social assistance from the state, although they are

very poor, e.g. their home is no longer a dirt floor,

or they have a three-wheeled vehicle donated by a

charitable foundation.

Unlike the Indonesian social security which embodied

in the form of social assistance for people with

17

disabilities with a particular category, United States of

America applying a more comprehensive system. This system

accommodates the particularity characters of people with

disabilities who need insurance by providing SSDI

program/ social security disability insurance as well as

providing SSI to reach out to the elderly people with

disabilities that poor. SSI is a social assistance

program that provided cash transfer to individuals with

disabilities. This welfare program is different from the

insurance for the disabled. However, this program has a

certain requirement, the first one is for disabled/blind,

the second requirement is that the age of the person

should be over 64 years. SSI is much less restrictive

than SSDI where individuals who are eligible for this

program will be examined over their earning capacity and

resources without having to calculate the working period.

SSDI provides cash for six months and with a term of 29

months insurance for people with disabilities who

18

registered and paid social security. The difficulty of

SSI and SDI system is that the availability of an

advocate assisting the people with disabilities to fight

their fate is crucial .

Systems in Indonesia are trying to combine these two

models in a single policy. However, compared to social

aid for the disabled, the system in Indonesia does not

provide insurance for the Disabled. In sum, legislation

on disability and poverty reduction policies fails to

complete recognition over diversity of disability. It has

consequences for the different capacities and

vulnerabilities that faced by different types of

disability. As noted by Fraser , social justice should be

interpreted as how to provide fair treatment and promote

the dignity and open space for the participation of their

diverse social backgrounds. There are problems of unfair

redistribution in policy and implementation of social

19

assistance distribution in Indonesia triggered by

ignoring recognition on the diversity of disability.

Social assistance for the group with severe

disabilities is a half-hearted redistribution policy by

the Indonesian government because they are not followed

by redistribution efforts on other disability groups. The

problem is when the government makes some indicators of

'severely disabled', the indicator ignores that they are

number of non 'severely disabled' among disable that also

hampered to access worthy livelihood. The exclusion makes

the non 'severely disabled' are prone to be poorer than

the poor due to they are excluded and discriminated from

proper work.

In social protection policies above, Indonesian

government produces redistribution policy that is not

good and does bad recognition that causes problems of

social injustice. The social injustice occurs when the

20

government stops the social assistance for all persons

with disabilities then prioritizes social assistance for

persons with severe disabilities only. The problem

started with bad indicators that show poor recognition of

the condition and experience with disabilities in

Indonesia. Then poor poverty reduction policy excluded

people with disabilities from community development

programs just because they got social assistance program.

C.3. Employment Sector

The third problems faced by people with disabilities in

Indonesia are excluded from access to earn a proper

living. In the case of the disabled worker, stereotypes

function to create cultural difference and thereby an

‘other’. It has implications for how the disabled workers

are treated by their fellow worker, employers and21

companies. Then, it can lead to classifications of the

disabled worker as ‘un-capable worker’ with implications

for unfair policies and treatments. ‘Othering’ denies

people with disabilities’ complex humanity and

subjectivity. ‘Othering’ operates as a strategy for

‘symbolic exclusion’, then it denies the other the right

to name and defines themselves .

However, Indonesia has a Labor law that has

determined employers must ensure there are at least 1% of

employees must come from people with disabilities. The

spirit of affirmation of this Act means to eliminate

barriers that prevent people with disabilities to get a

decent job. However, this law cannot be enforced

properly, and there are no consequences for employers who

do not apply this policy. That causes the access for

people with disabilities to formal employment is still

blocked; it explains why the average of the people with

22

disabilities in Indonesia come into the informal

employment .

The spirit of the government to redistribute decent

work for people with disabilities is an effort to

encourage equality for persons with disabilities based on

civil rights model. One example of successful

implementation of civil rights for people with

disabilities is a law for people with disabilities in the

United States that has successfully urged companies and

government agencies to ensure access to employment for

people with disabilities. However, both in America and in

Indonesia, these efforts have not succeeded in addressing

issues of social justice. That because there are still

large numbers of people with disabilities living in acute

poverty, which is not quite solved through the opening of

decent work access. Implementation of this civil rights

model needs to consider recognition on conditions and

experiences of the people with disabilities and all23

dimensions of poverty. For example, people with

disabilities cannot enter the formal job because of low

educational background. They are also excluded from a

good education due to the inadequacy of inclusive school

and poverty condition that makes them unable to access

and pay for education. This situation is a vicious cycle

of poverty for people with disabilities who need to be

trimmed first by the government.

In the job access policy, the use of civil rights

approach for people with disabilities is not applied

properly as well as cannot answer the challenges of non-

material poverty experienced by people with

disabilities . According to Weber , the poor of the

poverty situation experienced by people with disabilities

leads them to be very dependent on public support. It is

necessary to raise as much public support and repair all

policies as possible in order to achieve equality and

social justice. Further, this can be beneficial to24

improve the welfare of the disabled based on social

welfare model or a model that combines social welfare

model with civil rights.

Indonesian government produces redistribution policy

that is not good and does bad recognition that causes

problems of social injustice. Recognition will be

required to depict the vulnerability and capacity of

people with disabilities, to ensure the reduction of

exclusion of disabilities. Poverty experienced by people

with disabilities as well as the problem of poverty in

general also contains economic dimension of poverty.

However, their problems of poverty are much more complex

than that because it is associated to low investment in

human resources for the people with disabilities, as well

as non-material aspects which exacerbate the situation of

disability and poverty they experienced. The explanation

of this situation because disability is both a cause and

consequence of poverty. Disability as a cause of poverty25

is due to the high cost of living that need to be issued

to persons with disabilities than other groups as poor.

Disability as a consequence of poverty is caused by lack

of access to facilities and infrastructures that

facilitate people with disabilities to live as others .

Conclusion

The strategy taken by Indonesian government on education,

social protection and employment are by doing an

affirmative remedy. In both sectors, government created

special policies for people with disabilities that aims

to fix the unjust social relations. Actually, some

progress in achieving the rights of persons with

26

disabilities are precisely championed by some

organization concerning on such issues and NGOs that

fight for the rights of people with disabilities. Their

advocacy focused on recognition succeeds fruitfully

toward a number of policies that provide corrections to

the state policy, so some of these outcomes are assessed

as successful fulfillment of Indonesia conducting

disability rights .

Further, correction of social justice policy is only

able to run well in the dimension of recognition and is

not always able to influence the issues of

redistribution. Then the exclusion and discrimination are

still real problems of social injustice that are commonly

experienced by people with disabilities.

The disability convention of human rights has

capacities to accommodate and gives the Indonesian

disabilities law a novelty and strong perspective to

27

reach disability issues in Indonesia. However, since

Indonesia not ratified the convention yet, the law, the

policies, the programs do not take into consideration the

experience of people with disabilities. Moreover, there

are some conflict between policies and implementation of

affirmative remedy. It sharpened by the debate between

the universality of common laws-general policies and the

specificity of disabilities law and policies .

To sum up, multiculturalism projects in education

through inclusive schools are able to improve

recognition. However, it is still not able yet to fulfil

social justice when the redistribution aspect is not

strengthened. Both, in social protection sector and

employment sector, Indonesian government produces

recognition policies that is not adequate and does poor

redistribution policies that causes problems of social

injustice. Policies that attempted to address the social

exclusion issues suffered by people with disabilities28

without paying attention to the recognition and

redistribution have failed in improving access to social

justice for people with disabilities. That affirmative

policies even aggravate their situation.

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