05 Dec 2022

It is critical to promote integration of the vulnerable groups in communities, Assistant Minister of Health, Mr Sethomo Lelatisitswe has said.

Speaking during the International Day for People with Disabilities in Letlhakane on Friday, Mr Lelatisitswe said it was also important to identify, register and refer conditions of people with disabilities to relevant professionals.

Public awareness strategies, he said, should be intensified, not only for understanding conditions of disability, but also to comprehensively deal with stigma associated with the conditions.

“When we possess as well as seek to have explicit comprehension of various conditions of disability, we will usher in an environment conducive for all, including those experiencing the conditions, thereby promoting their active participation, independence and self-reliance,” he noted.

Mr Lelatisitswe said said it was important to cater for people  with disabilities in all projects.

“For example, if a building is without ramps to ease access of those who use wheelchairs, it is telling of the attitude of architects and building planners. Similarly when public information and education about healthy living is communicated through the print medium, without use of braille or sign language, this is again reveals that policy makers and health care practitioners do not factor in persons with visual or hearing impairment,” he said.

Mr Lelatisitswe emphasised the need to do more by becoming more broadly oriented to seeing and understanding the many forms in which disability could be manifested.

He stated that some disabilities could not be readily recognised or observed at first sight and the majority of such types of disabilities were associated with cognitive impairment.

He indicated that while disability was associated with strong stigma, it was worse amongst people experiencing invisible disabilities.

Mr Lelatisitswe stated that the invisibility of the conditions led mainly to exclusion of significant intervention strategies targeting the types of disabilities from planning and programming processes.

He said it was crucial to introspect as to why the effective tackling of issues related to disability continued to elude national plans.

The efforts of mainstreaming considerations of disability in the development agenda, he said had tirelessly been waged by the United Nations through the World Programme of Action of 1982, Standard Rules on the Equalization of Opportunities for people with disabilities of 1994, the Convention on the Rights of people with disabilities of 2006, and of late in 2015, the Sustainable Development Goals.

For her part, the permanent secretary in the Ministry for State President, Ms Goitsemang Morekisi said the National Disability Coordinating Office was established to ensure that disability issues were mainstreamed into sectoral policies and programmes.

Ms Morekisi said it was also intended to ensure active inclusivity and participation of people with disabilities in policy processes.

She stated that the role of coordination was the main agenda of the office and ensuring national coordination structures were strengthened to facilitate smooth mainstreaming.

Meanwhile, Head of UN Resident Coordinator’s Office, Ms Helen Andreasson said people with disabilities faced discrimination and barriers every day. This, she said, restricted full participation in society on an equal basis.

Ms Andreasson said people with disabilities were denied the rights to be included in schools and workplace, to live independently in the community, to enter freely into legal commitment such as opening a bank account or inheriting property. 

Disability inclusion, she said, was an essential condition to upholding human rights, sustainable development, peace and security.

The Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities which was adopted in 2006 and entered into force in 2008, signalled a paradigm shift from traditional charity oriented, medical based approaches to disability to one based on human rights, she said. Ends