'Give Them Right To Seek Help': Online Petition Seeks Emergency Helpline Number For Hearing And Speech Impaired

According to WHO estimates, India has a population of 63 million people with hearing and speech impairment. But there is no national emergency helpline number for them.

An online petition has been started asking the Union Minister of Social Justice and Empowerment to issue emergency helpline dedicated for hearing and speech impaired people. (Representational Image)

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Naina Navlani, head of accessibility vertical at Young Indians in Indore, was conducting a session on ‘good touch-bad touch’ for hearing impaired children when another dormant issue caught her attention. While making aware the deaf children about the emergency helpline 1098 to contact in case of a sexual abuse, one of their teachers pointed out: “What will happen if they call on that number? Police will think it’s a prank call (with silence on the other side).”

Navlani realised people with hearing and speech impairment find their disability more devastating when they are in an emergency situation. The helpline numbers are of no use to them. To make things worse, many such people do not possess strong reading and writing skills, which makes them more vulnerable. 

According to World Health Organization estimates, India has a population of 63 million people with hearing and speech impairment. But there is no national emergency helpline number for this group of people. 

Some cities like Mumbai and Delhi came up with a helpline number for the hearing impaired, but Navlani said with poor reading and writing skills how can they be expected to properly communicate in such situations.  

“The mishap would have already happened by the time they were to report it. How can one expect them to articulate their problem if their comprehension skills are not fully developed,” she said, while speaking to ABP Live. 

Navlani has started to make efforts towards raising awareness about this, and has started an online petition to have a specialised helpline number for hearing and speech impaired people. 

Subjected To Harassment 

People with hearing impairment often face harassment at the hands of authorities and other people, even family members, and even emergency helpline numbers remain inaccessible to them. 

Monica Punjabi Verma, director at the Indore Deaf Bilingual Academy, narrated incidents of how helpline numbers or courts are still largely inaccessible to this group of people. 

Citing an example from Madhya Pradesh, Verma told ABP Live how two boys expressed their inability to call for help when some people barged into their homes late at night and started thrashing them. “We could not hide ourselves in the bathroom where we could have called up the police for help,” Verma quoted the boys as having told her. 

In another example from Bihar, a hearing impaired girl from an affluent family, who lost her parents in childhood, did not get a single penny from her father’s wealth as her uncle seized it all and she was not able to seek legal help because she required an interpreter. 

Verma told how such people, who are caught up in a conflicting situation, are often wrongly blamed just because of their inability to communicate. 

Speaking for this group of people, Verma said: “We want an easy calling number like just pressing a star on the mobile phone to seek help." 

No Big Infrastructure Needed For Help 

Talking about probable solutions to the problem, Navlani said there is no need for a big infrastructural setup. 

“A special number like 100# so that everyone understands that a deaf person has called and that call gets redirected to an interpreter through video call would solve the purpose,” she said. 

"We need VRS (video relay service) or video call service through sign language interpreter 24/7.  Thats all!" 

Online Petition 

Her experience at the ‘good touch-bad touch’ session invoked Navlani to initiate an online petition on Change.org to Union Minister of Social Justice and Empowerment Virendra Kumar, which has garnered over 6,500 online signatures so far. 

"Isn't the accessibility to these helplines a basic right of every citizen of this country? Unfortunately, these helplines are of no use to deaf as yet,” she stated in her petition. 

She also spoke with Indore Lok Sabha MP Shankar Lalwani, who has assured her of a meeting with the Union Minister next month.

"He gave us a patient hearing and will be personally sending a letter about this to the Minister of Social Justice and Empowerment Department, Dr Virendra Kumar. He also told us he can help us meet the Social Justice and Empowerment Minister in Delhi next month," she wrote on Change.org website.