Federation of Disability Organisations calls for fast-track of revised law

The Ghana Federation of Disability Organisations (GFDO) has called connected the authorities and Parliament to fast-track the enactment of a revised disablement law. 

The federation said portion the Minister of Gender, Children and Social Protection indispensable enactment successful collaboration with the National Council connected Persons with Disabilities to instrumentality contiguous enactment towards the transition of the revised Bill, it wanted Parliament not to hesitate successful passing the measure erstwhile it was presented earlier it.

The Vice-President of the federation, Martha Coffie, who addressed a property league successful Accra yesterday, connected behalf of the National President, Joseph Atsu Homadzi, said the revised Bill would modernise the country’s ineligible model for Persons with Disability (PWDs), guarantee clearer organization responsibilities and amended entree to education, employment, wellness care, transport and justness for PWDs.

She said it would besides heighten accountability crossed each nationalist and backstage institutions and accelerate nationalist advancement towards inclusive development.

Ms Coffie added that the revised ineligible model for PWDs was indispensable due to the fact that determination were astir 2 cardinal PWDs successful the country, constituting astir 8 per cent of the colonisation who continued to look systemic inequalities.

“With government’s renewed commitments astatine the planetary and nationalist levels, present is the infinitesimal to construe words into action,” she stated.

Background

The federation said the Persons with Disability Act, 2006 (Act 715), passed astir 20 years ago, nary longer afloat aligned with modern disablement rights principles oregon with the United Nations Convention connected the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (UNCRPD), which Ghana ratified successful 2012.

For instance, she said, the hold successful finalising the revised Act had led to persistent accessibility and information barriers and anemic compliance and enforcement of disability-related obligations.

She added that it had besides led to gaps successful inclusive education, employment, transport, justice, integer inclusion and inequitable entree to mainstream societal extortion interventions.

These gaps,  Ms Coffie said,  held backmost Ghana’s advancement towards inclusive improvement and threatened the country’s committedness nether the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

The federation pointed retired that its renewed telephone aligned with the government's caller nationalist commitments astatine the 2025 Global Disability Summit and astatine the nationalist motorboat of the Free Tertiary Education initiative, wherever leaders pledged to interruption down barriers and grow entree and adjacent opportunities for each Ghanaians, including PWDs.

“Despite these affirmative commitments, legislative enactment connected the reviewed Act has been slow, leaving millions of Ghanaians with disabilities without an updated ineligible model that reflects their rights, dignity and aspirations,” Ms Coffie stated.

Actions

The federation called connected the Ministry of Gender, Children and Social Protection to fast-track each remaining processes for Cabinet support and  to urgently contiguous the revised Bill to Parliament.

Furthermore, it said, the National Council connected Persons with Disabilities indispensable intensify determination and nationalist stakeholder engagement, nationalist consciousness and method coordination to enactment the finalisation of the Act and heighten organization readiness for its implementation erstwhile passed.

Other speakers astatine the property league were the Director of the Ghana Burns Survivors Foundation, Yaw Ofori Debrah, and the Director of the Ghana National Association of the Deaf, Juventus Duorinaah.