Social inclusion of people with disabilities: a case from Nepal's decade-long civil war

Abstract

This paper discusses the issue of social inclusion of people with disabilities who acquired impairments through Nepal's decade-long insurgency. In-depth qualitative interviews have been conducted with nine individuals. A disparity in government facilities and services was observed, whereby the combatants reported receiving fewer services than the Nepali army. In relation to their impairments, participants experienced mostly non-discriminatory behaviour from their families, whereas their perceived impression of the community's behaviour was mixed. Additionally, participants were anxious about their daily living in part resulting from insufficient facilities and inadequate community inclusion strategies, as well as the lack of activities that can help increase opportunities for their economic well-being.

Keywords:

• conflict
• acquired impairments
• inclusion
• facilities
• Nepal

Acknowledgements

The author would like to thank the participants for taking the time to participate in the interview. I also appreciate the support from Ramhari Silwal for interviewing the participants and providing valuable suggestions on data analysis section. Similarly, I thank Diana Kartika for her helpful suggestions in revising the manuscript. Last but not least, I thank all anonymous referees for their comments, which have helped improve the quality of this paper.