It is very difficult to get reliable figures concerning handicapped people in India and in Bangladesh. Figures vary between 19 million and more than 50 million, about half of which are children below the age of 15 years. Many people on the Indian subcontinent consider a handicapped child as punishment by their gods. Because they feel ashamed, many parents are hiding their handicapped child within the house.

The causes for handicaps are, obviously, quite different: Frequently, simply poverty and ignorance are causing handicaps. Only a small portion of handicaps is existent since birth of a person. Unsuitable or insufficient food during infancy, unsatisfactory hygiene or drinking polluted water lead to many illnesses. If these illnesses are not diagnosed early enough or are not adequately treated, they frequently lead to fatal long-lasting deficiency. In particular for children, they very often cause grave handicaps. Lack of vitamin A, e.g., leads to eye damage, a non-treated middle-ear inflammation causes deafness or, because no oral vaccination against polio was available, a child might be unable to walk.

In these countries where a large part of the population has to fight, day by day, for their survival, treatment and training programmes for handicapped people are available for few and mainly more wealthy people only. And in many cases the poor people are not aware of the existence of the very few programmes which are accessible to them.