Stakeholders urge govt to ratify Disability Protocol

The government has been urged to fast-track processes to ratify the African Disability Protocol (ADP) to ensure that the rights of persons with disability (PWDs) are upheld.

The ADP, which is the legal framework on which member states of the AU are expected to formulate disability laws and policies, requires that 15 countries sign, ratify and domesticate the protocol to ensure its implementation across member countries, including Ghana.

Stakeholders who were speaking at a meeting on the ADP in Accra yesterday said that although the country had pledged its commitment at the Global Disability Summit in 2022, there was the need to ensure that momentum was not lost, especially as the nation prepared for the polls in 2024.

Since the protocol was adopted in 2018, only eight countries, including Nigeria and Togo, have so far ratified or have begun some processes towards ratification.

Significance

The senior Global Advocacy Advisor of SightSavers International, a charity organisation, Grace Antwi Atsu, said it was important for the country to ratify the protocol because it addressed issues of customs, traditional beliefs, harmful practices and ritual killings, among others.

“The ADP ensures that no one is truly left behind.

It is unique to the continent and takes African practices and concerns into consideration so that the lives of people with disability are improved.

“It tackles the ingrained issues of disability discrimination so that everyone can access health, education and employment without stigma,” she said.

Reaffirmation of norms

The Programmes Manager of the Ghana Federation of Disability Organisation, Peter Anomah-Kordieh, also said that the protocol was not intended to undermine the spirit of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) to which most African states were already members.

Rather, he said, the protocol reaffirmed the norms established in the CRPD while addressing issues which were not dealt with by the global disability rights instrument.

“This means that the two instruments complement each other where a state is party to both of them,” the manager said.

The President of the International Council for the Education of all Visually Impaired Persons (ICEVI), Dr Peter Obeng-Asamoah, also said that ratifying the protocol would not only benefit people with disability, but also improve the social environment.

“Let's see it as a protocol that is good at improving our nation.

Let's see it as a protocol that would build our nation to become a better place and make us a worthy member of the Community of Nations.

“Times have changed and we must understand that we need human resources from all quarters whether the person has a disability or not,” he said.

Dr Obeng-Asamoah, who is also the Executive Director of the Ghana Blind Union, therefore, called on all to join hands to ensure the protocol was ratified.