People with disabilities of varied nature constitute a significant percentage of the population in many countries. Developing countries face more problems as a result of poverty. People with disabilities continue to face problems in relation to marginalization by societies and therefore face barriers to their involvement in communal activities. Disabled persons are entitled to exercise their social, civil, economic, cultural and political rights on equal basis with others and hence current debate and issues surrounding disabled people include political and social rights, citizenship and social inclusion. Efforts of looking for effective ways to ensure that disabled people can fully participate in society issues and make their contribution in all spheres of life have been realized.
Disabled people face many challenges in visiting several public places such as shopping malls and food courts especially if these places are not designed to facilitate their easy movement. If we first begin by looking at parking spaces usually reserved for disabled persons in shopping malls and food courts. The first challenge facing disabled persons going on a shopping trip is finding a handicapped accessible parking spot. Disabled people spend lots of time looking for parking spaces reserved for them since they are normally limited. Other motorists who can be described as unkind park their vehicles in disabled people spots making the situation worse. However other shopping malls have several parking spots reserved for disabled motorists and management have developed rules and regulations that are used to discourage other motorist parking in spots designated for the disabled. The front parking spots closest to the shopping mall should have been given to disabled persons but instead they are given on first come first served basis to able bodied people while the spots for the handicapped are put on the sides. Entrances to shopping malls should be designed to cater for the disabled but in several instances it does not favor the handicapped. Entrances to malls have to have handicapped accessible cuts in their side walks in order to allow access for wheel chairs. Disabled people have to use the cuts in the side walk since they are unable to use the steps. Though some shopping malls my have these cuts, they are located off to the sides far away from the entrance instead of close to the entrance making it uncomfortable for the handicapped. Shopping mall owned wheel chairs are located at the customer desk far inside the mall instead of being placed at the entrance to facilitate easy movement of the handicapped. Several stores are not handicapped accessible considering their design for example isles are not large enough to allow wheel chair to move through. Shopping for clothing is not a good experience for the disabled. Though there are shopping malls that have handicapped accessible dressing rooms, several of them lack this important facility. In stores that lack this facility, it would be difficult for the disabled to try fitting clothes as it would be difficult to access fitting rooms that are not wheel chair accessible. Visiting the rest room is another challenging experience for shopping malls and food courts that have no handicapped accessible rest rooms.
From the above assessment, there are so many difficulties that disabled persons encounter in moving around in public places. Business and public places such as shopping malls and food courts should be made more accessible to the handicapped. More handicapped facilities such as handicapped accessible fitting rooms, rest rooms and parking spots should be encouraged and increased in number to make the disabled comfortable in their daily lives just as the able bodied people do. Legislation should be developed to ensure that all public places are made accessible to the disabled and designing of places not accessible to the disabled should be discouraged completely.