by Chris Agbo
Disability Rights Advocacy Center (DRAC) on 9th and 10th of July, 2020 organized a two day training of Organizations of Persons with Disabilities (OPDs) on Human Rights Laws in Nigeria.
The activity is part of DRAC’s policy-to-practice project (P2P) supported by the ROLAC program of the British Council and European Union to improve access to justice of women and girls with disabilities.
The Executive Director DRAC, Dr Irene Ojiugo Patrick-Ogbogu in her opening remarks reminded the participants that COVID-19 is real and they should at all times observe all the safety/precautionary measures as advised by Nigerian Center for Disease Control (NCDC).
Speaking further, she said that the meeting is to get leaders of disability community to look at some human rights laws in Nigeria with disability lens to review how the provisions are applicable to persons with disabilities. The human rights instruments included Discrimination against Persons with Disabilities (Prohibition) Act 2018, Child Rights Act (CRA) 2003 and Violence against Persons Prohibition Act 2015 (VAPPA). It is important for persons with disabilities to understand these laws and to know when their rights and that of people around them are being violated.
She reaffirmed that though the project is specifically designed to improve access to justice for women and girls with disabilities, the success of the project would equally be of great benefits to men with disabilities.
The project geared towards access to justice of women and girls with disabilities would be achieved through the following steps, knowing your rights, knowing when your rights are being violated and knowing where to report and how to report when your rights are violated.
She concluded by urging the participants to apply the new knowledge to their project programming in their various clusters, reminding them that they were particularly invited to participate at the meeting because of the leadership positions they hold at their various clusters and admonished them to ensure that they step down the knowledge acquired to their members so that the desired changes would be seen and felt by all.
The sessions for the two-day training were interactive and engaging. During the two days, the participants learnt a lot from the facilitators – Uzoma Aneto a seasoned lawyer and Sexual Gender Based Violence advocate, who took them through the Nigerian Child Rights Act. Mr. Lawrence Idemudia, a Disability Rights Advocate and President of Center for Deaf Inclusion (CDI) took the participants through the provisions of United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, Mr. Ikem Uchegbulam, an experienced lawyer and the Vice Chairman JONAPWD FCT who made a presentation on the Discrimination against Persons with Disabilities (Prohibition) Act 2018 and Amaka Agwu a Program Officer at DRAC who x-rayed the Violence against Persons Prohibition Act (VAPPA) 2015 to the understanding of all participants. The meeting was participatory and interactive in delivery and participants were given group work at the end of each session.
Participants through group work proffered some actions that need to be taken to improve access to justice for children and women with disabilities. They include: Organizations of Persons with Disabilities (OPDs) should intensify human rights awareness by engaging government officers saddled with enforcement responsibilities, justice service providers and other relevant stakeholders; more sensitization programs should be organized of OPDs in urban and rural areas for PWDs to sensitive the society on the human rights laws, and how to demand for justice when human rights are violated; and to get the public to increase the rate at which they report cases of violation especially child rights related violations.
The participants were elated by the quality of the training which they observed was timely because of the current prevalence of child abuse and violation in Nigeria, and the high rate at which the rights of persons with disabilities especially women and girls with disabilities are being violated with little or nothing being done by justice service providers to address them.
At the end of the meeting participants were presented with DRAC’s simplified versions and accessible copies of Disability Act, VAPP Act and Child Rights Act.
