Has Ghana achieved its purpose?
Ghana’s Disability Law, 2006 (Act 715) was passed in 2006, aimed at ending the discrimination that faces people with disabilities but the ten-year moratorium given by the Act for old buildings to be renovated to disability-friendly status has indeed not been met.
It is worth noting that about ten percent of Ghana’s population are Persons with Disability (PWD). Although their rights are guaranteed both by Ghana’s Constitution and by International Conventions, in reality these provisions have offered them very little actual protection against discrimination.
People with disabilities in Ghana are often regarded as unproductive and incapable of contributing in a positive way to society. Instead of being viewed as assets, they are rather seen as constituting an economic burden on the family and the society at large, which leaves them in a vicious cycle of poverty.
But the assertion seems to be false as there are numerous PWDs, who have climbed the ladder to the pride of many Ghanaians, with special mentions to the Minister of Chieftaincy and Traditional Affairs, Dr. Henry Seidu Daanaa; Mr. Ivan Greenstreet, Presidential candidate of the Convention People’s party (CPP); Mr. Ben Quarshie, retired Director of Finance at the Ministry of Employment and Social Welfare, who despite their disabilities, had shown that there was no glass ceiling for people with disability.
Mr. Quarshie single handedly donates sewing machines to support the students of the St. Theresa School for the Physical challenged at Abor in the Volta Region, as way of encouraging them that disability is indeed inability and to express the feeling that there is a lot PWDs can do to support each other and society at large.
Many Ghanaians including Parliamentarians who passed the Law have expressed disquiet on the continued observance of customary norms and practices that were inimical to the inclusion of persons with disability in society despite the passage of the Persons with Disability Act (Act 715).
