Unemployment for persons with disabilities is “ridiculously high”, observed Minister of People Empowerment and Elder Affairs Kirk Humphrey yesterday.
During debate on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities Bill, 2024, in the House of Assembly, the minister estimated that the number of people with disabilities accounted for about 15 to 20 per cent of the country’s population but said a better figure would come with surveys and the registration of such people.
“It is absurd, and I remember the conversations that we had with the private sector,” he said, pointing out that there had been 75 meetings over the course of the legislations with various entities. Humphrey had previously called for the private sector to have a quota for employing persons with disabilities (PWD).
He said the system is currently constructed requiring academic qualifications for certain jobs that the disabled are unlikely to achieve because of the education system.
“So we perpetuate a discrimination,” he said.
The minister said he believed that issues of education, transportation, and health must be tackled to ensure that people are healthy enough to be in school.
The legislation was a vision for the country and what inclusive prosperity must look like as it rectifies some of the challenges and offer care and support while promoting welfare and protection from abuse and neglect, he said.
The Bill, said Humphrey, is a serious one that within it has the empowerment agency and a tribunal [headed by an attorney chairperson] in case a PWD wants further consultation on a hearing.
“It’s our intention that once you walk in [Social Empowerment Agency], you get a holistic and total service. . . . You may be a person with a disability inquiring about something related to disabilities, or you may not be, but if you walk in, the officers in that agency are now charged to do a full investigation, to look at all of the various components in the family. Are there elderly people in the house? What is the state of the house? Are there children in the house and so on?
“The agency is authorised to receive and investigate complaints related to the violations of this legislation, so that you now have an agency that is going to be looking out specifically on behalf of the interests of persons with disabilities,” he stated.
While the legislation calls for PWD to register, it also has a $1 000 fine for those who falsely register.
There is also provision for the protection from victimisation of persons with disabilities, with a penalty not exceeding $50 000.
“We have not sought to put jail terms on to some of these acts because we do not believe that we should put persons in jail for these things. But at the end, the fines are substantial enough and the will of the Government substantial enough to ensure that what we put here in the legislation is followed,” Humphrey stated.
He described as shameful some of the comments from people who did not recognise that a PWD is entitled to exercise their sexual and reproductive rights.
“We would be surprised to hear the comments being levelled at persons with disabilities as if they’re not human with the same physical needs as any other human being,” he said.
Humphrey went on to relate reactions to the disabled who had children with questions about how they were going to take care of the child or why they were in relationships.
“That’s the kind of discrimination that we are seeking to be able to address in disability.”
He explained that even in a case where a person excelled academically and in work as well, when they should be experiencing a moment of greatest joy as a woman, “being able to give birth to your child” there are some asking “what you’re doing with a child”.
“Those kind of things are wrong,” he stated. (AC)
