BY CHRIS AGBO
Disability Rights Advocacy Centre on Monday 2nd December, 2019 in Abuja organized a one-day Stakeholders meeting to validate and review the simplified version of The Discrimination against persons with disabilities (Prohibition) Act, 2018.
The Discrimination Against Persons with Disabilities (Prohibition) Act, 2018 prohibits all forms of discrimination against persons with disabilities and seeks their full integration into the society. The Act came into being when it received Presidential Assent on 23rd January 2019, but since then very little or no progress has been made towards the implementation of its provisions largely due to lack of political will and low awareness of citizens on its contents and purpose.
The general public including persons with disabilities are mostly unaware of the provisions of the law, what constitutes acts of disability-related discrimination and the sanctions for violations of the law. Where there is poor understanding of the law, citizens are unable to push for its implementation and compliance with its provisions.
For the above reason, DRAC in their wisdom in bridging this gap simplified the text in the act illustrated it and translated it into pidgin as well as audio versions for those who are Blind and for the low literate population.
The meeting was to review and validate these various versions of the simplified text of the Act.
The Executive Director of DRAC, Dr. Irene Patrick-Ogbogu, while giving a background to the project explained disability and how barriers created by the society constitute the disability not the impairment itself. Different forms of disability face different barriers and challenges and accessibility issues also differs, but there are four common barriers that constitute or prevent the full participation or inclusion of PWDs. There are physical barriers, communication barriers, policy barriers and attitudinal barriers. Physical Barrier, PWDs inability to access public facilities, Communication Barriers, is mostly suffered by the deaf and the blind which necessitated provision of sign language interpretation, reading materials for the deaf and audio format for the blind. Attitudinal barriers is the biggest enemy to PWDs if it is addressed, all other barriers would be taken care of. This barrier gave birth to all the neglects that constituted the other barriers. Policy barriers manifest in the form of lack of legislation and sectoral policies to protect and drive the affairs of the PWDs, not until 2019 after years of struggles.
The biggest challenge now we are facing is its implementation which includes the establishment of a commission to implement and give room for the full inclusion of PWDs in our country, she therefore urged the government to fast track the establishment of the commission.
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She went further to state that it is because of this that DRAC is making efforts to popularize the Act. Putting the disability act in the simplified version in English and pidgin languages for everyone to know the law concerning the PWDs and be aware of the consequences and penalty.
The disability right act is in different parts, the first part is discrimination is banned and awareness should be raised, the second part is accessibility, third part is transportation and the fourth part is seaport, airway and railway transportation, fifth part is freedom of exploitation, right to health, education, right to be attended to first before others, the sixth part is opportunity for employment in public life, the seventh is the establishment of national commission and eight the appointments and duties of executive secretary and other staff.
The participants were divided into groups to review the work already done by DRAC and after their inputs, unanimously agreed and validated all the reviews and corrections made in the English and Pidgin Versions and gave DRAC a go-ahead to produce the final document.
The stakeholders at the event were representatives of the different disability clusters, Media practitioners, and Civil Society Groups.
The validation meeting as well as the review and translation to Pidgin and audio versions were made possible through the support of the RoLAC program funded by the European Union and implemented by the British Council.
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SOME PICTURES OF THE MEETING
