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Opinions of Wednesday, 24 September 2014

Columnist: Dorcas Aba Annan

Persons with disabilities in Ghana must survive

Most people have the idea that, persons with disabilities are suffering from curses as a result of punishment from God. In other words, they are being punished due to some wicked activities or sins they committed in the past.

All these negative ideas that people have raised on persons with disability could be true; but there are other health reasons resulting to disability.

According to World Health Organization (WHO), a disability is an umbrella term covering impairments, activity limitations and participation restrictions.

Impairment is a problem in body function or structure; an activity limitation is a difficulty encountered by an individual in executing a task or action; while a participation restriction is a problem experienced by an individual in involvement in life situations. It is very clear that persons with disabilities need the help of every individual in the country; thus, they are restricted to engage in certain activities that can help them to get money for money.

Persons with disabilities must survive irrespective of the challenges, hardships and stigmatization in the country. Some of the challenges they face include being stigmatized by family and friends, bearing insults from people and being ignored to enjoy some social amenities in the country.

It becomes very pathetic when some drivers tend to use abusive words and end up pushing the visually impaired people from their car while begging for alms. On the other hand, drivers must rather encourage passengers in the car to give out their contributions to persons with disabilities; hence, it will help them to survive in spite of their condition.

The leaders in the country are doing their best to provide certain rules that can protect persons with disabilities, but citizens must take total responsibilities of protecting and providing help for such persons.

The article 29 section 4 of the 1992 constitution of the Republic of Ghana states that, “no person shall in any manner exploit a disabled person; discriminate against a disabled person; or subject a disabled person to an abusive or degrading treatment”. This act makes it simple and clear to all those mistreating persons with disability to desist from such behavior.

Moreover, there are some organizations that are being set up by the state to provide incentives to the disabled people for survival. Some of the associations include Ghana Federation of the Disabled (GFD), Ghana Association of the Blind (GAB), Ghana National Association of the Deaf (GNAD) and Ghana Society of the Physically Disabled (GSPD).

Even though these associations are working hard to provide better conditions for the disabled, but some of them are still seen on the street from morning to evening begging for money.

In my point of view, persons with disabilities can survive in spite of the hardships in the country when all citizens, stakeholders and other non-governmental organizations come together to establish a good structure that can help provide better conditions for them.

Furthermore, our leaders can provide good strategies like providing monthly allowances to persons with disabilities, sharing meals for those on the streets and encouraging more people to give out their contributions to the persons with disabilities.