NHRC: Colour-blind people is discriminated

BANGKOK, Jan 15 (TNA) -- Thailand's Office of the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) has planned to propose that driving license issuance regulations be adjusted to accommodate people with colour-blind disability, after a survey has found that this group of people has been discriminated. The NHRC has organised a research seminar on the Discrimination on Colour-blind Persons, aimed to gather ideas, opinions, and suggestions on how adjustments on laws and regulations could be made to provide more justice to this group of people. Former committee member of the NHRC and moderator of the research, Dr Taejing Siripanich said the research has been carried out after the a group of colour-blind people, which made up about 10 per cent of the total population, has filed a complaint to the committee that they were not able to obtain a driving license because of their disability. He said the reserach has shown that Thailand is unjustly discriminating this group of people, as persons with physical disability, such as those who is missing a leg, could still obtain a driving license. He pointed out that after studying the driving license issuance regulations in the United States, United Kindom, and Sweden, all three countries do not have any prohibitions against people with colour-blindness to obtaining a driving license. Moreover, he has found that many occupations in Thailand do not accept people with colour-blindness. Dr Taejing stressed that researches have shown that colour-blindness does not affect a person's ability to drive, as the brain has still function with basic human instincts which help this group of people to be able to distinguished the colour of the traffic lights correctly. The former NHRC committee member informed that he would now be presenting the results of the research to relevant agencies to influence improvements on needed regulations to allow colour-blinded persons to obtain a driving license, while suggesting to the Public Health Ministry to carry out more thorough inspection on the biography of Thai children to determine whether or not each could be at risk of becoming colour-blind to allow them to better plan for their future. (TNA)