The National Youth Network, which is comprised of various youth organizations throughout the country, has urged the government and other stakeholders to pay close attention to the plight of Persons with Disabilities (PWDs), as they are disproportionately affected socioeconomically during pandemics such as the one we are currently experiencing with Covid-19.
These remarks were made at the Ange Hill Hotel on Thursday, December 16, 2021, during the closing ceremony of a One-Day National Dialogue on the Participation and Inclusion of Youth with Disabilities in Decision Making and Governance, organized by the Foundation for Security and Development in Africa in collaboration with the Ghana Federation of Disability Organizations and the National Youth Network.
Buttressing the need to act on the call, the Youth Network said even though there are several anti-discriminatory legal provisions that have been put in place to protect the rights and dignity of persons with disability, a week hardly goes by without a reported case of discrimination or abuse of a person living disability.
According to the Network, these individuals are not only discriminated against and mistreated, but are also excluded from the country’s decision-making and governing processes.
“In Ghana, the structural governance space within the public and civic space in civil society organizations and networks have not sufficiently adapted to the fact that youth with disability have the capacity to meaningfully contribute to policy discourse and implementation.”
According to recent World Bank estimates, 1 billion people, or 15% of the world population, live with some sort of disability.
According to the most recent 2021 Population and Housing Census, 16% of Ghanaians have some sort of handicap.
Despite these figures, handicap concerns are often thrown under the rug.
Nonetheless, certain efforts have been made to accommodate those with impairments. Article 19 of the 1992 Constitution includes protections for disabled individuals.
Additionally, Ghana has signed, ratified, and implemented a number of international accords, including the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities and the African Decade of the Disabled Person.
Ghana enacted the People with Disability Act (Act 715) in 2006 to provide a legislative framework and safeguard the rights of persons with disabilities. This was shortly followed by the establishment of the National Council for Persons with Disabilities, which was charged with overseeing and supervising the Act’s implementation.
The dialogue’s participants, the majority of whom were disabled, made numerous recommendations, including increasing the budgetary allocation to the GES’s special education unit to 1.5 percent, making sign language learning mandatory and integrated into the curriculum up to the SHS and for all teaching and learning institutions, including law schools, colleges of education, nursing training schools, and all medical schools, and providing spaces for uneducated students.
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SOURCE: 3NEWS
