Gender Ministry Launches 2 Documents On Disability

By Jonathan Donkor

The Ministry of Gender, Children and Social Protection (MoGCSP) on Monday launched two documents on disability to climax this year's International Day of Persons with Disability (PWDs).

The documents are Framework and Strategies for Disability Mainstreaming in the Metropolitan, Municipal and District Assemblies (MMDAs) and Ghana's Initial Report on United Nations (UN) Convention on the Rights of PWDs.

The framework and strategies provide guidelines on how MMDAs and other public institutions could make disability issues an integral part of their day-to-day planning, budgeting and implementation of programmes.

The report, on the other hand, outlines measures taken by the government of Ghana to implement the UN Conventions on the Rights of PWDs since it ratified the convention in 2012.

Adopted by the UN General Assembly on December 13, 2006, the convention is an international human rights treaty intended to protect the rights and dignity of persons with disabilities.

Parties to the convention are required to promote, protect, and ensure the full enjoyment of human rights by persons with disabilities and ensure that they enjoy full equality under the law.

Ghana's first report should have been submitted in 2014 (two years after ratification by parliament on March 12, 2012) but due to implementation challenges, the country was unable to submit it.

Launching the documents at a durbar in Accra, the sector minister, urged the MMDAs and other institutions to implement the provisions in documents so an inclusive society where all PWDs would be able to participate on equal basis in the development process, would be created.

Lamenting the challenges PWDs went through due to inadequate support systems, she pledged to champion their course and ensure that they enjoyed equal opportunities.

She called on philanthropists to augment efforts being made by the government to alleviate the plight of PWDs as the government could not do it all alone.

According to the initial report, the state had put in place the necessary legal, policy and intuitional framework to ensure the full implementation of the convention.

Despite these, it said the state recognised that, persons with disabilities still face challenges, which hinder their inclusion in the national development process, due to implementation challenges.

It said the state would continue to collaborate with and the PWDs and other stakeholders to strengthen the existing structures and develop new ones that will ensure the effective implementation of the convention.

Ms Christiana Nkrumah, a member of the Ghana Society of Physically Disabled called on the government to stop paying lip serve to their plight and take pragmatic steps to ensure rights were not trampled upon.

Since 1992, the United Nations International Day of Persons with Disabilities has been annually observed on December 3 globally to promote issues affecting PWDs. The theme for this year's IDPD was, 'Empowering persons with disabilities and ensuring inclusiveness and equality'.

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