Enforce rights of people with disabilities

EVERY day across Africa, millions of people with disabilities navigate a world that excludes and disadvantages them.

- RUTH USEH

While laws and conventions across the continent proclaim equality, the lived reality for people with disabilities often tells a different story one of structural, systemic and often invisible exclusion, marginalisation, and denial of basic rights.

Disability is not merely a physical or mental condition it is a complex interplay between individual impairments and the societal, environmental, and institutional barriers that prevent full participation.

For example, a deaf student may be excluded from university lectures without sign language interpretation, while a blind person may miss vital health updates shared only in visual formats. Such barriers, not the impairments themselves, often limit full participation.

The human rights model of disability, as reflected in the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) and the African Disability Protocol, expands on the social model by emphasising equality and rights.