by Adeola Kukuru,
Disabilities Rights Advocacy Centre (DRAC) Monday launched guidelines on needs assessments on children with disabilities and child protection in the Federal Capital Territory (FCT).
The programme officer of DRAC, Idris Agboluaje explained that documents includes prototype videos with 3D animation videos which depicts universal design standard on how facilities should look like in police stations and hospitals.
He further said DRAC was disseminating simplified and accessible version of the Nigeria Disability Act in pidgin to members of the disability community and other organizations.
According to him, others include a tool kit on Disability Inclusive Service Delivery in Sexual and Gender Based Violence Response and 3D animated video on Persons With Disabilities (PWDs) inclusion and access to facilities.
Agboluaje said that DRAC realized that so many people were not aware of the situation of women and girls face as a result to violence thereby thinking that discrimination or violence against PWDs especially women and girls was normal.
“So we took it upon ourselves to try to see how best we can address these issues. Another challenge we faced was that women and girls with disabilities who have been violated do not have access to justice.
“Many time when they visit police stations or service providers they are told to go and settle with perpetuators or that services are not available to cater for their needs.
“So we developed these tool kits for it to guide service delivery in the FCT, also we did a mapping of special and inclusive schools in the FCT and the report showed that a lot of children with disabilities are victims of violence,” he said.
Also, the Acting Director, Social Integration Department, National Commission for Persons with Disabilities, Mr Lawrence Idemudia
said that the documents would help on how to deal with children with disabilities and gender based violence in the country .
He said “Disability can happen to anyone ,so if you put yourself in that position ,the violence will stop ,because you will begin to think what if this is my child ?’’
Idemudia said that when Nigerians were enlightened on these issues their orientation would change .
He urged that more documents should be published and made to go round the Country so that more people especially PWDs would know about gender based violence and how to treat children with disabilities.
