Abstract—This paper looks at the rights of the people with disabilities (PWDs) in the connection of social exclusion in Malaysia. The paper briefly reviews the current disability laws and national policies and find out the gaps and weaknesses of these documents. This paper shows how the rights of disabled people in Malaysia are associated with the process of social exclusion. By reviewing a number of studies, this paper offers a dimension of social exclusion, where the disabled people are depriving from their rights and excluding from the development arenas. The development practitioners, policy makers, and relevant governmental and non-governmental officials find some significant guidelines from this paper. Index Terms—Disability, social exclusion, human rights, Malaysia. I. INTRODUCTION People with disabilities (PWDs) in Malaysia can be considered as one of the most vulnerable of the minority group in the Malaysian population [1]. WHO and World Bank (2011) estimated that there are 15% of the world population have some form of disabilities. According to the statistics from the Department of Social Welfare, the registered number of disabled people is 197,519 [2]. Total 359,203 disabled people were registered with the Department of Social Welfare in December 2012. Rashid mentioned that total number of disabled people in Malaysia is 305640. Among them, 27,363 are visual, 39,303 hearing, 180 speech, 106,252 physical, 117,699 learning, 2,130 mental and 12,713 multiple disabled people [3]. However, these data are incomplete as registration of persons with disabilities in Malaysia is not compulsory, and is done only on a voluntary basis. In addition, the data are not up to date, as the names of those who have died are not deleted from the main record [4]. See and Hashim argue that the lack of a comprehensive database on the specific problems faced by people with disabilities in Malaysia poses a great challenge [5], [6]. The number of people with disabilities is expected to increase due to population ageing, rapid increase of chronic diseases and improvements in methodologies used to measure disability. There are various forms of open discussion on the equal rights and the quality lifestyle of the people with disabilities in Malaysia. Their opinions are often excluded from the Manuscript received September 27, 2013; revised December 5, 2013. This work was supported by the policy and social assessment for disenabled community in a multi-culture society – Malaysia. Sub-Program 2: Rights and Advocacy, No. of Project: RP003B-13HNE. Humanities & Ethics (H&E), Centre for Civilization & Dialogue, University of Malaya. M. R. Islam is with the Department of Social Administration & justice, Universality of Malaya, 50603 Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia (e-mail: rezaul@um.edu.my). decisions that affect their welfare and livelihood. Most important thing is that a large numbers of disabled people are socially excluded in Malysia and they are now out of the main development stream [7]. There is no complete statistics on this number, but this process is very influential. Disablity in one hand and social exclusion in another, intesifies the lives of disabled people so challenging. Persons with disabilities are usually the nation‟s largest minority and they tend to be marginalized in all aspects of life. They usually experience substantially poorer quality of life and are more likely to be unemployed due to institutional discrimination [4]. Amar-Singh mentions a number of challenges of the disabled people, which include continued charity model with lack of respect, lack of uniform professional and quality services by the Health, Welfare & Education Departments, growth of poorly trained professional manpower, lack of integration between various sectors, unhealthy rise in financially motivated services, and vulnerable segments of the population [8]. II. RIGHTS OF DISABLED PEOPLE IN MALAYSIA: LEGISLATION AND POLICIES Historically, the concept „disability‟ remained as one of the most neglected and forgotten development agenda by both the State and the non-state actors. They have always been considered as recipients of charity and welfare. By the late 90‟s, almost all donors in the development field started changing their support from a service-delivery approach to a rights-based approach. From the 1970s onwards, academic discussions on disability and disabled people have moved away from a notion of impairment or „handicap‟, and the concept of a social model of disability has been introduced. The social model arose as a reaction against the medical treatment of disability, which reduced disability to impairment so that disability was located within the body or mind of the individual, whilst the power to define, control and treat disabled people was located within the medical and paramedical professions. The introduction of the social model of disability was an attempt to readdress the power balance: disability was to be defined in the context of a disabling environment and disabled people were empowered as citizens with rights. At its inception, the social model was a political, rather than an academic approach, „built on a basic rejection of the individual or medical approach, which puts the fate of disabled people solely in the hands of professional experts, particularly doctors, rehabilitation and social care staff‟ [9]. The Persons with disabilities (PWDs) are now entitled to exercise their civil, political, social, economic and cultural Rights of the People with Disabilities and Social Exclusion in Malaysia M. Rezaul Islam 171 International Journal of Social Science and Humanity, Vol. 5, No. 2, February 2015 DOI: 10.7763/IJSSH.2015.V5.447