GLOBAL DISABILITY SUMMIT AND DISABILITY RIGHTS
GLOBAL DISABILITY SUMMIT AND DISABILITY RIGHTS: A WAKE UP CALL TO PUT DISABILITIES AT THE CENTRE OF DEVELOPMENT
Hon. Dennitah Ghati, MP is
a Member of the National Assembly of Kenya. She represented Migori County (2013-17), before she was nominated as a special representative for Persons with Disabilities in the Kenya Parliament. She is the Founder and Executive Director of Education Center for the Advancement of Women and has previously worked at the African Network for Health Knowledge Management & Communication and The League of Kenya Women Voters. She was also a journalist at the East African Standard Newspaper, based in Nairobi.
In July 2018, representatives from across the world were in London, UK for the first ever Global Disability Summit 2018, a summit that was graciously hosted by the UK and Kenya governments. I was privileged to attend and participate as the Member of Parliament in the Kenya Parliament, representing persons with disabilities and as the Executive Member of the CPA Kenya Branch, and as a member of the newly formed CPwD (Commonwealth Parliamentarians with Disabilities) Network. The summit brought together dignitaries from all spheres including: a President with a disability, a female Vice-President with a disability, more than 25 Ministers of various Governments, Permanent Secretaries, Senators, MPs, the World Bank, Heads of UN Agencies, International NGOs, Disabled Peoples’ Organisations (DPOs) and other actors. The Kenya delegation included MPs, Senators, the Ministry of Labour and Kenyan DPOs. It was hosted by the UK and Kenya Governments in collaboration with the International Disability Alliance (IDA) and the UK Department for International Development (DFID). The summit helped achieve new levels of global commitment in mainstreaming disability into development cooperation as per article 32 of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD), the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and Agenda 2030 which is an important opportunity to promote the rights of persons with disabilities globally. The main objectives of the #Global Disability Summit were:
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• To raise global attention and focus on a neglected area – Disabilities • To bring in new voices and approaches to broaden engagement on disability issues • To mobilize new global and national commitments to the realization of Article 32 of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (UNCRPD). The meeting also saw signing of the #Charter for Change – a document pledging to put disability at the centre of the development agenda. It is estimated that one in every eight persons is living with some form of disability (15% of the world’s population), corresponding to over 1 billion in the world having a form of disability. A majority of these people with disabilities are living in the developing and midincome countries, particularly in Africa. These disabilities are varied in nature from physical, hearing, seeing, speaking, and many other hidden disabilities. Amongst all of these global statistics, women with disabilities are disproportionately represented, with the majority of the disabled
women and girls rejected by family and the community, illiterate and unemployed. For far too long, disability has remained absent from the international, and even national, discourses in many countries. Many countries of the world are still ‘developing countries’ when it comes to disability issues and the Global Disabilities Summit gave us the forum to lay forth strategies on how best to harness the relevant strategies. To date, 177 countries, including Kenya, have ratified the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. This is a legal framework that provides commitment to the advancements of the rights and welfare of persons with disabilities. There are many challenges in raising awareness of the rights of persons with disabilities in the international arena. Unfortunately, the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) in 2000 made no actual mention of disability in its discourse. Dialogs around the subsequent Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) have tried tremendously to discuss disability. Kenya has approximately 6.5 million persons with disabilities. Kenya has ratified the UNCRPD