پاکستان · Pakistan
السلام علیکم۔ یہ ہماری کہانی ہے۔
Four laws in five years. None of them names our language.
Access on this page: Signed: Pakistan Sign Language — pending How this page is tested
Pakistan has written disability rights into law four times since ratifying the UN convention in 2011: Balochistan in 2017, Sindh on 11 June 2018, the federal capital on 22 September 2020 — the first federal-level Act — and Punjab in 2022. Not one of them recognises Pakistan Sign Language. The community wrote it down anyway: Deaf Reach and the Family Educational Services Foundation built the first PSL dictionary — more than 6,000 signs, online, with animated stories and teacher tutorials — and PTV has carried sign language on air for decades, from the programme Boltay Haath to news in sign language. The laws are ours, four times over. The language is ours, self-published. The delivery is what we build.
PSL video — this story, in our language
A named Pakistani Deaf creator tells this page's story in PSL. The video is the page, and the text is its transcript's cousin. This video existing is the reason this page is allowed to exist.
Four laws. No language named.
So we named it ourselves — and now we deliver it.
What do you want to do?
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I want access
Watch.Understand.Belong.
Television, film, and services — in PSL, captions, or audio description.
Go -
I create access
Create.Get paid.Be seen.
Deaf signers, interpreters, captioners, audio describers — your work, your name, your income.
Go -
I provide access
One API.Every screen.
Platforms, governments, cinemas, companies — deliver real access with one integration.
Go -
I back access
Host.Sponsor.Invest.
The builders who will put a self-published language on every screen — be part of the firsts.
Go
More than one of these can be yours. The access is for you, and you can be paid to help make it.
Access in Pakistan today
The law now says:
Discrimination on the ground of disability is prohibited and accessibility is a duty — the ICT Rights of Persons with Disability Act 2020, assented 22 September 2020, the first federal-level Act; and the provincial Acts of Balochistan (2017), Sindh (2018) and Punjab (2022). Pakistan Sign Language is documented in a dictionary of more than 6,000 signs the Deaf community built for itself.
And we know the exhausting part: a language with a dictionary and no legal name is a language no court has to provide. Every Act says accessible; none says PSL.
We wrote our language down without waiting for the law. The delivery comes next — made by us. That is what ally is: Deaf and blind creators, paid to make the access — PSL, captions, audio description — delivered to any screen.
In plain words
The law is on your side. What is missing is the service — and that is what gets built here, with the community.
Why captions alone are not enough → Why sign language
Talk to us
Tell us who you are
Write in your own language. We reply in it.
- Emailpartners@a11y.media
- Video messageSend a signed video — no writing needed
Contact us by form, email, or a signed video message — never voice-only.