22nd September, 2015.
TO ALL MEDIA HOUSES
Press Statement
For Immediate Release
This statement is released as a reaction
to the speech given by the President of the Republic of Zambia, His Excellence,
Mr. Edgar Chagwa Lungu. Disability Rights Watch believes that the speech was
message-carrying and it contained what Zambians and the international
co-operating partners always want to hear. The speech partly carried a great
promise for the people of Zambia in general and if all words became deed, we
would see and experience the “transformation” the speech is advocating. The
speech was also encouraging to Disability Rights Watch (DRW) because it touched
on some issues DRW has for some time been advocating, especially the expedition
of the enactment of the Mental Health Bill in the current sitting of the
National Assembly. We pass our open gratitude to the President for this because
the enactment of the Bill will be a landmark decision for persons with
psycho-social disabilities.
The Mental Health Bill will remain a
landmark decision because of its stance in clarifying the human rights of
persons with psycho-social disabilities. It empowers persons with psycho-social
disabilities to participate in making decisions that affect their life either
direct and independently or through supported decision making. This is a key
fundamental right that has for a long time been suppressed by the archaic
Mental Disorders Act of 1951. Persons with psycho-social disabilities, together
with other disability organisations have been calling for the establishment of
the National Mental Health Commission which would oversee the promotion and
protection of the rights of persons with psycho-social disabilities and at the
same time monitor the implementation of mental health services in Zambia. The
pronunciation of the enactment of the Mental Health Bill in the speech gives
hope to all who have been calling for this. The Bill promotes the establishment
and implementation of community-based mental health services. Its early
enactment in the current sitting of the National Assembly will be a great
stride by government in de-institutionalizing mental health services and
subsequently decongesting the psychiatry hospital and units in Zambia. The
implementation of community-based mental health services is also a step towards
reducing the huge stigma attached to mental health problems. This might even
reduce the myths around mental health problems. DRW is excited with the
Presidential proclamation and gives the President a loud applaud.
What we are waiting for is the
implementation of the pronouncement and consequent provision of adequate
funding and human resource towards the rolling-out of all that which is
advocated in the Mental Health Bill. We also are keen to see the immediate move
to begin developing regulations to the Bill for the smooth implementation of
its provisions. What is more exciting for DRW is that the Presidential
pronouncement is in line with the UN Sustainable Development Goals which will
be adopted this year as a post-MDDG development propeller. The SDG Goal number
3 is clear on promoting mental health.
The President also brought out the issue
of equitable and quality education. We believe that equitable quality education
carries the principle of inclusion with it. We call upon the Minister of
Education to ensure that that the Ministry of Education begins to promote and implement
“true” inclusive education whose systems and implementations processes appropriately
include learners with all forms of disabilities. The system should also promote
and implement inclusive life-long education. This calls for appropriate teacher
training; inclusive curriculum development and implementation; creating safe
and accessible infrastructure and school environments; allocation and
disbursement of adequate funds and; of course effective involvement of
communities.
The President also said “government is
reviewing the policies on education, science and technology as well as the
technical education, vocational and entrepreneurship training in order to make
them more relevant to the current and future needs of our country”. This is
very essential. This is a great opportunity for Zambia to ensure all policies
governing the education system promote inclusive education and technical and vocational
training. Many persons with disabilities are left out by the whole education
system because the system is not yet inclusive. This again opens an opportunity
to begin tuning our system to the provisions of the coming UN Sustainable
Development Goals. Goal number 4 is on ensuring equitable and quality inclusive
education for all. The policies should also take into consideration the
provisions of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities
which call for inclusive education. Zambia has ratified the Convention and
domesticated it through the enactment of the Persons with Disabilities Act of
2012. So, we need to see a system change that will ultimately emerge into true
equity, access, achievement by all learners and of course quality. The
President directed the Minister to complete the policy reforms by June 2016. We
hope this directive is adhered to.
The President called for community based entrepreneurship through
co-operatives. This is a great move. It falls into the call for community-based
rehabilitation to trigger inclusive development. Community-based
entrepreneurship is one way of empowering citizens and this must benefit
persons with disabilities who champion community-based rehabilitation. Since
DRW has been one of the champions of community-based rehabilitation, we shall
now adopt the statement as one of our advocacy issue. We shall stand to ensure
co-operatives form part of community-based rehabilitation for persons with
disabilities. We take this opportunity to call upon all co-operatives to ensure
that persons with disabilities be included in the formation and leadership of
any co-operative. We also support the move by the President to move the Department
of Co-operatives from the Ministry of Agriculture to the Ministry of Commerce,
Trade and Industry. This will encourage the co-operatives to diversify their
economic activities.
In his speech,
the President touched on the issue of addressing unemployment among citizens
especially the youths. This has been a running ‘song’ of the government. It is
important to deliberately target youths with disabilities and ensure that they
are in decent and gainful employment. This should be in both the informal and
formal sectors. Youths with disabilities have got less employment opportunities
than their peers without disabilities. Therefore, it is just prudent to develop
specific targeting strategies to empower them. Economic empowerment for
youths with disabilities should include open up access to start-up capital for
entrepreneurship. In view of this, we are in support of the President’s
statement that “access to
capital is a challenge for most of our entrepreneurs and innovators who wish to
establish or grow their businesses”. This is worse for youths with
disabilities. So, as measures are being taken to ensure easy access to
affordable capital, specific measures should be taken to ensure youths with disabilities
are included. Furthermore, in order to empower youths with disabilities,
government should practice preferential procurement by prioritizing
entrepreneurs with disabilities. Measures should also be taken to build the
skill capacity of entrepreneurs with disabilities to produce goods and services
that will go at competitive prices.
The
President stressed the issue of infrastructure development across all sectors. Since
the government is emphasizing inclusive development, it is essential to ensure
that all infrastructure, across all sectors, is accessible and safe to persons
with disabilities. Therefore, it is important to ensure minimum standards for
accessibility are urgently developed. Inaccessible infrastructure is one
of the largest barriers hindering persons with disabilities from effectively
participate in national development. Such infrastructure is also a form of
discrimination on the basis of disability. The issue of accessibility should
also affect the transport and ICT sectors.
The issue
of building universities in every province is key for national development.
This should go with building the capacity of the academic human resource in all
these universities to embrace inclusive tertiary education. It is sad to note
that the already existing universities are not yet inclusive in terms of
infrastructure, training and assessments. The new universities should be
inclusive from the onset. Persons with disabilities should find it easy to
enroll, study and achieve academic and professional development.
As we
conclude, we call upon the government to expedite the process of launching and
implementing the National Policy on Disability. We also urge the government to
take keen interest in supporting the UN Sustainable Development Goals and
quickly adopt them as part of our transformation agenda in our post-2015
national development plans. This will ensure that persons with disabilities
play a big role towards achieving our Vision 2030 as a nation.
Signed,
Wamundila
Waliuya,
Executive
President.
Cell:+260977459925
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