Halt the Job Discrimination

Public Agenda (Accra)

Members of the community of persons with disabilities (PWDs) have said that they can no longer take the situation where they are denied jobs simply because of their disabilities and not because they cannot work.

Last week, some members of the group who are unemployed were at the offices of the newly created National Council on Disability to have an interface with the chairman on their plight.

They took turns to narrate how after rubbing shoulders with their abled counterparts to acquire various educational qualifications, they have had to be moving from office to office in search of jobs to no avail.

After listening to several of the affecting stories, the Chairman of the National Council on Disability, Mr. Andrews Okaikoi, heaved a sigh of relief and said he identified very much with the concerns raised, since as a disabled person himself, he had had to rely solely on his own initiative for employment over the years since no one would give him a job.

The Disability Act of 2006, Act 715 says that "A person with disability shall not be deprived of the right to live with that person’s family or the right to participate in social, political, economic, creative or recreational activities."

Quoting from the above, the Executive Director of the Centre for Employment of Persons with Disability (CEPD), Alexander Kojo Tetteh, said economic participation, for him, stood out since without it persons with disability stand the risk of losing their dignity in society.

This newspaper identifies very much with the concerns raised by the disabled community in the sense that, though physically disabled, the majority of them can work as well as any other person if given the opportunity. Indeed, their concern is that it is not a favour but equal opportunity they are seeking.

It is very disheartening to note that even in cases where they have managed to rub shoulders with their abled counterparts to acquire various levels of education, they are discriminated against on the job market. Besides, the failure of many District Assemblies to allocate the 2 percent component of the Disability Common Fund to enable them develop their skills is worrying.

As for those who have no education, the least said about them the better. What becomes their lot is for them to be hanging around street corners and traffic lights in the scorching sun living off the benevolence of others.

Public Agenda would like to appeal to government and indeed private employers to take a serious look at the plight of the disabled in the country; they are an invaluable human resource most of whom have been abandoned to become liabilities on the society. If given the needed attention and support, they can work equally well and contribute significantly not only to the betterment of their own lives but the good of the nation at large.

There is need for the institution of realistic plans and programmes, specifically targeted at the disabled community towards giving them education, skills and jobs.