Ratify and implement Marakesh Treaty to meet the needs of the blind and reading-disabled
Education is recognised the world over as one of the major building blocks of any nation. It is, however, important that for education to have the desired effect on the development of a nation, all its citizenry should be given the chance to take advantage of the opportunities which education provides in order to achieve both personal and national aspirations.
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Since access to information is inextricably intertwined with the opportunities to be derived from education, it is imperative that efforts are made to overcome the multiple barriers to information and subsequently education that exist for blind and reading disabled persons.
This means that, inter alia, facilities such as books and reading material should exist and be provided for learners and readers who are blind or other reading disabled, to enhance their acquisition of knowledge.
In his State of the Nation address, the President, Mr John Dramani Mahama, informed the nation that he had instructed the Ministry of Education to ensure that textbooks were printed for all schoolchildren.
Dear readers, I hope the numbers include the needs of blind and reading disabled children. Their needs should not be handled as an afterthought. It is important that we, as a nation, remind ourselves that just like anyone else, the right of these persons to have reading material in accessible format is guaranteed by our own 1992 Constitution, United Nations Convention for the Rights of Persons with Disability and the National Disability Act.
Marrakesh Treaty
In order to make access to reading material a reality for all persons, I call upon all progressive Ghanaians to support the ratification of the Marrakesh Treaty.
This treaty allows blind and reading disabled persons to put published works in accessible formats such as braille, large print and audio where they are not available commercially. This will give blind persons a chance to read the information provided to everyone else. Dear readers, it is apparent that one way Ghana can improve access to information by the blind and reading disabled persons is the ratification and implementation of the Marrakesh Treaty.
This treaty will allow for more books and printed material to be published in accessible formats and shared across borders providing access to a wide variety of printed material.
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Book famine
Blind and partially- sighted people the world over suffer from a “book famine”, in which only a small percentage of published works are ever made in accessible formats such as braille, large print or audio. Where a book has been published, but not in an accessible format, two-thirds of the world’s countries do not have copyright laws that allow blind persons to make accessible format copies of such a book.
As a result, blind and reading disabled persons are virtually denied access to the books in the libraries, in the universities and schools, the communities and even the bookshops. It is estimated that less than five per cent of all published works are accessible to blind and reading disabled persons. It is this situation that the Marrakesh Treaty seeks to address.
The Ghana Blind Union (GBU) calls on all parliamentarians, ministers of state and public-spirited Ghanaians to help end the book famine by ratifying the Marrakesh Treaty.