Today The Greater Majority Of Handicap People Living In West Africa Are Still Struggling For Full Citizenship In The Their Individual Countries On A Daily Basis WHY and WHO Is To Blame! What is the Way Forward To Redress this Undesirable Situation? My Humble Opinion as a Gambian Citizen and a physically Handicap Person caused by Polio since at the age of 3 years now thank God i am 42 years old and still living with disabilities. As people living with disabilities in West Africa form 10 percent of each member countrys population according to the World Health Organization =WHO most recent Annual Report. I think our fellow abled bodied or normal or full citizens to see beyond our disabilities and fully accept us as an integral part of them because we came from them. In West Africa Sub Region, disability still remains a highly misunderstood condition with numerous medical and environmental challenges. There are many different types of disabilities mostly found in West Africa namely, physical disability, mental disability, hard of hearing deaf, dumb, blindness etc, just to mention a few examples. For individuals affected with disability commonly referred to as Handicap People, discrimination starts at their individual family homes. First and at a very tender age in most cases they experience rejection by their immediate families especially from fathers and parternal relatives. Mothers are invariably blamed and in most cases abandoned when they have a disable child in the family. A woman living with a severe physical and Whelel Chair User i meet in Car Park in Tema, Ghana in West Africa told me in 2011 that men do not want to marry her, but she sometimes have relationship with them under the cover of the night and everthing happens in the dark: and they deny the 2 children they produce with her on a casual basis ; because of fear of redicule and harassment by their families and peers. And in other cases for those whose fathers accept them, people living with disabilities still face challenges of finding sincere acceptance and integration into their families, for example for one of the handicap children living in The Gambia i know very well, whenever his father was asked how many children he has, he would say i have four but one of them is a handicap. This to me means that this young person was treated as less of a human beign by his own biological father; Also in Sierra Leone in Kono District i was told by members of Disable people Organizations i was training basic skills on project proposal writing workshop in December 2007 funded and coordinated by Handicap International, that there was a handicap boy in Kono who was born with a very big head and spent all his childhood confined in a room at home because his father who was a very famous business man in the community feared to be ridiculed by the neighbours and peers over his abnormal son. In which type of World are we now living in! I think all the above mentioned negative attitudes of abled bodied people towards us people living with disabilities in West Africa is the low literacy rate resulting in the low level of awareness with regards to the real causes of disability because disability is still seen as a Curse from God by the greater majority of people instead of a health problem this explains there negative attitude. Also because of misconception and stigma, the majority of people living with disabilities are still not taken to school. Most parents not only doubt the intellectual potential of people living with disabilities But also strongly believe that they cannot get professional jobs in future. This is linked to a widely held believe that most people living with disabilities has personality disorders or doubt their output. Governments in West Africa do not give them a clearly defined Employmentent Quotas in the Civil Service through policy to ensure Equalization of Employment Opportunities for Handicap People like all other citizens. Why is still this not accepted and put into law and practice, why do we still need to struggle for our full citizenship rights and responsibilities! Who is to blame is it the responsibility of the Executive or the Legislative or national assembly members! I think it is high time to act before it is too late for justice delayed is justice denied. For example as part of my civic responsibilities as a Gambian Citizen still struggling for full citizens like all other people living with disabilities in The Gambia; today in all officially recognized state structures or major decision making bodies in The Gambia, for example President, Ministers, National Assembly Members or Law Makers, Regional Governors; Area Councillors, District Chiefs and Head of Villages and Village Development Committee, Women Groups, School Parent Teachers Associations, Credit Unions or Cooperatives, Board Members o Banks and other Financial Lending Institutions; State owned Parastals Boards, The National Sports and Youth Council, The Government disaster relief Committe or disaster prepareness,the Private Sector Leaders and Civil Society Groups, Political Party Structures, we disable people in The Gambia for 10 percent of the population but we are never consulted, included in all these national decision making structure which make major decisions which directly influence our daily lives; thsi is why i think we as still struggling for full Gambian citizen until the day our brother and sister will accept giving us at least 1 male and 1 female nominated representative of handicap people in each of the above mentioned decision making structures in The Gambia. Even to exercise our voting rights of electing our President in The Gambia Handicap people in their majority do not vote because of lack of tactile ballot boxes, sign language assistances during Elections period why are we not full citizen to choose our own President and infact we are 10 percent of the population and therefore have numbers and can influence election results when we are allowed to register in time and facilitate the voting process because it is our constitutional and inalienable riight, which politician or national assemble member or President of The Gambia has ever defended or even recognize our civic rights in The Gambia and are we still full citizens please act now before it is too late. People living with disabilities are refused by some mainstream public and private schools, advising parents to take them to special needs schools. These people generally do not require special treatment. What they need is some reasonable accomodation to enable them adapt to a society mainly designed for normal people or abled bodied or full citizens. For example in all public space in The Gambia like schools the government can make ramps and toilets suitable and can facilitate easy acess for children living with disability, also public transportation facilities are still not acessible; Teachers and University Lecturers in The Gambia all other West African States could be train in Sign Langauage and Braille as well as inclusive education best practices to avoid separating handicap children and their blood brothers and sisters at a very tender age, the promotion of an INCLUSIVE WORLD MUST START at this level to avoid future discrimination in employment opportunities for example: Finally the Media both online and print media are also partly responsible for the marginalization of Handicap people in our society today, simply because when advertising a product in their newspapers print or online or Television they Never USE THE IMAGES OF HANDICAP PEOPLE but only uses beautiful and strong able bodied Gambians to convince the public to buy the product because disability is seen as infirmity. Finally in terms of Media Ownership and content diversity the Editors of Online and Print Newspapers and TV Stations tend to give priority to Celebrities in their News item to sell well and make more profits or money than put a blind woman begging in the streets, therefore in concllusion i think we are all responsible for our this undesirable situation because we people living with disabilities are also to blame for when you ask us for example a bling man, a physically disabled person; a deaf person and a dumb person all disabled but with a different type of disability to elect a President their collective interest, they will never succeed in unanimously electing one of them as President simply because each one of us think we are more capable than the other sufering from a different type of disability, each of us sometime feel more important than the other and this perhaps explain why diffent types of Handicap people Association formation apart from the needs of a specialized treatment and care in some few case general we have the same problems therefore unless we unite as one people and speak with one voice the rest of the West Africa citizens and their governments will not take our cause seriously by givng us full citizenships and equal rights; today we need a more Inclusive Society with equal opportunities for all to ensure a highly participatory model of good governance, peace, prosperity for all people and sustainable development in west Africa and beyond, I thank you all for your cooperation and suport in this direction. Signed, Pa Abdou Sarr Felix
Posted on: Tue, 19 Nov 2013 17:45:11 +0000
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