Rights of disabled a noble move

Zimbabwe that the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities shall be brought for consideration by Parliament has rekindled hope among the disability fraternity in the country. The disabled fraternity has been waiting with bated breath for the signing of this convention, that the government will soon append its signature to this seminal document.
This conviction is not misplaced – no other international instrument offers greater scope for inclusion of people with disabilities, disability mainstreaming and equalisation of opportunities than the United

Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with disabilities, which was passed by the United Nations in 2006 and came into force in May 2008.
If signed by the government, the convention offers a range of options for action towards improving the situation of people with disabilities across the entire spectrum of human endeavour.
The government can use the convention as a detailed guideline on how to secure full inclusion of people with disabilities at all levels; development practitioners can gain knowledge on how to incorporate people with disabilities in their programmes; organisations of and for people with disabilities can use the convention to advocate, network and collaborate with the government, civil society, the business community, and wider society to work towards the acknowledgement of the rights of people with disabilities; and people with disabilities and their families can use the convention to learn about their rights and demand that these rights be respected.

The convention will greatly complement and add value to the only existing piece of disability legislation in Zimbabwe, the Disabled Persons Act of 1992.
Although the act generated a lot of interest at its inception, people with disabilities contend that the act does not provide sufficient safeguards for disability save for criminalising discrimination on the grounds of disability.

While the core international human rights instruments that precede the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities – International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination; International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women, Convention against Torture.

The Convention on the Rights of the Child, and; International Convention on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of Their Families – recognise the rights of all, including persons with disabilities and offer significant potential to promote and protect the human rights of persons with disabilities, this potential has only been fully realised with the advent of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities.

The Convention marks the end of a long struggle by persons with disabilities and their representative organisations to have disability fully recognised as a human rights issue, which began back in 1981, with the International Year of Disabled Persons and the World Programme of Action concerning Disabled Persons, adopted as the outcome of that year.
Of note, the convention espouses a rights based approach to disability, which recognises that the social exclusion and the unique challenges faced by PWDs were not the natural and unavoidable consequence of their physical, mental, intellectual or sensory impairment, but the result of the failure of societies to be inclusive and to accommodate individual differences.

Critically, in contrast to the discredited welfare approach to disability, it views the inclusion of PWDs in society as an obligation and not an option, promotion of autonomy of PWDs a right as opposed to external control; empowerment a prerogative in contrast to the disempowering effect of the welfare approach; fixing the environment a key factor as opposed to fixing the disability; facilitating activity for PWDs a key requirement as opposed to limiting activity, dignifying the PWD in contrast to belittling; promoting independence and not dependence and fostering inclusion and integration instead of institutionalisation and segregation.

In addition, the convention also recognises that the social, legal, economic, political and environmental conditions that act as barriers to the full exercise of rights by persons with disabilities need to be identified and overcome.

It also seeks ways to respect, support and celebrate human diversity by creating the conditions that allow meaningful participation by a wide range of persons, including persons with disabilities.
Protecting and promoting their rights is not only about providing disability-related services. It is about adopting measures to change attitudes and behaviours that stigmatise and marginalise. Societies need to change, not the individual, and the Convention provides a road map for such change.