February 20, 2018

Landmark protocol: A new dawn for Africa’s disabled people

located:	Gambia
editor:	Bob Koigi

In one of Africa's most historic developments, the African Union recently adopted the Protocol to the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, setting the stage for a legal instrument that gives more than 84 million disabled Africans equal recognition before the law and unfettered access to justice.

The protocol, while building on the rights espoused in the UN convention for the rights of persons with disabilities and the UN Charter, has given a more dedicated and African approach to the rights of persons with disabilities, ensuring that the infrastructure in the continent meets the demands that cater for them too.

Indeed it has been a long road to the realisation of the protocol, whose idea was first mooted in 1999. But more importantly it now means that people with disabilities can live with dignity and enjoy being part of their society, having had to be subjected to some of the most inhumane conditions so far.

In Africa, where disability is treated as a curse rather than a condition or an illness, disabled people have been tortured, imprisoned and hidden from the public because they are pitied, while their families shield themselves from shame and public ridicule. In a case that amplified the treatment of persons with disabilities in Africa, mental illness patients in a Gambia psychiatric unit were subjected to physical and verbal abuse, extended detention and living in deplorable conditions. When the case was presented to the African Union, it identified the continental legal gap in respect of the rights of people with disabilities. Even the African charter, the anchor of human rights laws has remained silent on this.

As the continent now celebrates this landmark protocol, the onus is now on the 53 member states to ratify it as a matter of urgency and give this issue the legal teeth it deserves to make the world a better place for disabled people.

Photo: Light for the World