Gail Alexan­der

Se­nior Re­porter

The Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice must do their du­ty and charge the pub­lic of­fi­cial who mis­used a park­ing space des­ig­nat­ed for peo­ple with dis­abil­i­ties, says tem­po­rary Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) Sen­a­tor Ky­ron James, a mem­ber of the dis­abled com­mu­ni­ty.

“It can­not be rules for ‘thee’ and not for me,” James said dur­ing his con­tri­bu­tion to yes­ter­day’s Sen­ate de­bate on a mo­tion by In­de­pen­dent Sen­a­tor Ali­cia Lalite-Eti­enne.

The mo­tion called for the Gov­ern­ment to ta­ble in Par­lia­ment, with­in the year, a com­pre­hen­sive na­tion­al strate­gic plan, in­clud­ing law to elim­i­nate bar­ri­ers to so­cial and eco­nom­ic ex­clu­sion, en­abling all dif­fer­ent­ly-abled per­sons to par­tic­i­pate ful­ly in pub­lic life with dig­ni­ty and in­de­pen­dence. The mo­tion was ap­proved.

“I sup­port this mo­tion as I live the re­al­i­ty this mo­tion seeks to ad­dress ... when we speak of bar­ri­ers, I’ve lived those bar­ri­ers in build­ing, trans­porta­tion, in at­ti­tude and bar­ri­ers in em­ploy­ment,” James said.

He has arthro­gry­po­sis mul­ti­plex con­geni­ta (AMC), a rare non-pro­gres­sive dis­or­der char­ac­terised by mul­ti­ple joint con­trac­tures (stiff joints) and mus­cle weak­ness present at birth. It is of­ten due to ge­net­ic fac­tors or struc­tur­al is­sues af­fect­ing limbs, some­times the spine.

He said for peo­ple like him, life is a cal­cu­lat­ed dance where one de­pends on loved ones and friends.

While laws have been passed, he said, in peo­ple’s lived ex­pe­ri­ences, there is a wide gap be­tween rights on pa­per and ac­cess in prac­tice.

“Re­cent­ly on so­cial me­dia, we saw a pub­lic of­fi­cial mis­use a park­ing space des­ig­nat­ed for peo­ple with dis­abil­i­ties. This one strikes a nerve, es­pe­cial­ly for me be­cause I’m a cit­i­zen who is al­so a dri­ver,” he said.

“When I go to these ar­eas which have hand­i­capped park­ing, I refuse to use those park­ing spots as I be­lieve I still have enough strength to walk ten steps. I leave that spot for some­body ... these spaces aren’t a con­ve­nience, they’re ac­cess. With­out them, par­tic­i­pa­tion be­comes im­pos­si­ble.”

He added, “When such rules are ig­nored, it re­flects a lack of un­der­stand­ing and re­al­i­ties of peo­ple who—like my­self—live with dis­abil­i­ties. If we can­not re­spect some­thing as vis­i­ble as a park­ing space, we’ll strug­gle to im­ple­ment na­tion­al ac­ces­si­bil­i­ty poli­cies.”

“Poli­cies must be sup­port­ed by aware­ness, and aware­ness must be sup­port­ed by en­force­ment. As a mem­ber of the dis­abled com­mu­ni­ty, I call for the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice to do their du­ty and charge that pub­lic of­fi­cial un­der the Mo­tor Ve­hi­cle and Road Traf­fic Act,” he said.