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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