Ghana, report on the UN Convention on Persons with Disabilities
Ghana ratified the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) on 12th March 2012.
The initial report on the implementation of the CRPD – due on 2014 and submitted 4 years later on 5th June 2018 to the Committee – contains an overview of the regulations (general and particular) on disability adopted until then by the African country. These are extremely important data as it is usually quite difficult to trace legal sources of African countries.
Shown below a list of the regulations:
- (IV) The Constitution (1992)
- The Children’s Act (1998 – Act 560)
- Labour Act (2003 – Act 651)
- Persons with Disability Act (2006 – Act 715)
- The Domestic Violence Act (2007 – Act 732)
- The Education Act (2008 – Act 778)
- Mental Health Act (2012 – Act 846)
- The Marrakesh Treaty (2017)
The document also includes the recommendations – issued by the work groups that drafted the document itself – Ghana will have to comply with in order to conform its regulations and policies on disability to the CRPD provisions.
Among the most important:
- Emendation of Ghana Disability Act 715 to include the rights of women with disabilities (par. 65);
- Developing programmes and policies for the safeguard of children with disabilites, practising inclusive education, also with public schools catering for all categories of children with special needs (parr. 92, 93 e 95);
- Increased effort to educate the public on the issues of disability, so as to improve the situation of persons with disabilities, which is characterized by prejudice, ignorance, superstition, neglect and fear (parr. 119 e 122).
