Africa

“We wish for a better world in which all people are treated equally, a world where human rights belong to everyone. We invite you to walk beside us. We know where we want to go…” 

                                                Pan-African Network of People with Psycho-social Disabilities

                                                Cape Town Declaration, 16 October 2011

In 2009, MDAC started to work in Africa, in collaboration with partner NGOs. Africa presents challenges different to those which MDAC faces in central Europe, but we realised that the root causes of human rights violations are universal. Our African colleagues have told us that the legal advocacy strategies which we have been using for a decade in Europe could equally be useful in Africa. Our work in Africa has predominantly focused on Kenya, Uganda, Zambia and South Africa. Nevertheless MDAC has also carried out one-off interventions at the African regional level and in other African countries. If you are an NGO and would like us to work in your country, please contact us. 

Current Situation

Eighty percent of people with disabilities live in developing countries where people with disabilities are the poorest among the poor. Those with  psycho-social or intellectual disabilities are among the most marginalised of all.

Human rights laws affecting people with disabilities in Africa are evolving. Over half of the African countries have ratified the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities  

Few African states have constitutional protection on grounds of disability and even fewer states have specific legislation on disability. Many African countries still have out-dated lunacy laws from the colonial times that are not based on a human rights approach, leaving psychiatry completely unregulated, resulting in practices that amount to ill-treatment. Many African communities regard madness to be possession by the devil. The response by some church leaders and traditional healers is to exorcise the spirits out, and sometimes this involves driving the evil spirits by beating, lashing, burning or otherwise abusing the afflicted person. These practices, however much supported by the local community, also constitute ill-treatment which is prohibited under international law.

Girls and women often experience multiple forms of discrimination in, for example, sexual and reproductive rights and the right to have a family. Discrimination on the basis of disability and gender is often exacerbated by poverty and mandated by culture. 

People with disabilities are often unemployed and trapped in poverty, depending on their families for survival. Having a mental health problem is sufficient reason not to get or keep a job. Children with intellectual disabilities are rarely given the opportunity to attain decent educational outcomes as they are denied education altogether. People with disabilities therefore are visible as homeless people and are left with no options than begging on the streets.

Unlike in Europe, there are few psychiatric institutions, but those which exist often harbour abuse and exploitation, offer  little actual treatment and hardly any rehabilitation. Community mental health is not widespread apart from pockets of good practice by NGOs such as Basic Needs.

Access to justice is almost unheard of for people with intellectual disabilities and psycho-social disabilities. People with disabilities rarely turn to courts to seek justice because they lack the knowledge, the financial resources, lawyers are not trained to take their case, and the judiciary is in many countries corrupt and also shares much of the stigma in society. There is only one regional level human rights case (Moore v. Gambia) where the applicant was a British mental health professional on vacation in Gambia who saw abuses in a mental health facility and decided to complain. 

The political invisibility of people with disabilities and their exclusion from public life is startling. The laws exclude people of ‘unsound mind’ from voting or from holding appointive and elected offices. Procedure, facilities and voting environments are still not fully accessible for people with disabilities. 

In order to address these issues, the African Union has extended the African Decade of Persons with Disabilities that ended in 2009 to 2019, after recognising that this situation needs continued attention. The main goals of the decade are to raise awareness on the plights of people with disabilities and to identify solutions tailored to African experiences that enhance participation, equality and empowerment of people with disabilities. the African Union has asked the Decade’s secretariat to develop a new Continental Plan of Action for the second decade. The African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights is currently drafting an Africa Disability Protocol.The Pan-African Network of People with Psycho-social Disabilities is currently working on strengthening its capacity, as is Inclusion Africa, the regional organisation for people with intellectual disabilities. 

MDAC activities

Strategic litigation: MDAC is working with attorneys in East Africa to develop strategic cases of rights violations against persons with psycho-social disabilities and persons with intellectual disabilities. For this purpose, MDAC held a capacity-building event for litigators from East Africa in February 2012. MDAC is actively seeking to support local lawyers and NGOs wanting to bring test cases to court. Please contact us at mdac@mdac.org, if you would like more information.

Research and monitoring: MDAC is carrying out research on the right to legal capacity in Kenya. The study is to inform relevant stakeholders how laws and practices impacts on decision making rights of adults with disabilities. In Zambia, MDAC is investigating how some forms of traditional healing violate the right of people with psycho-social disabilities to be free from torture and ill-treatment. MDAC is working on a report on violence, abuse and exploitation of women with intellectual disabilities in South Africa.

Capacity-building: MDAC staff have participated as trainers in various training events (including: training on CRPD at the Central African sub-regional workshop for governmental officials in November 2010, Inclusion Africa regional forum in March 2011 and Pan-African Network of People with Psycho-Social Disabilities  in October 2011). In February 2012, MDAC held a capacity-building event for litigators and disabled people’s organisations from Uganda, Kenya and Tanzania to strengthen the skills of attorneys interested in litigating disability cases and build a network of attorneys who would be interested in working with MDAC to take cases to domestic, regional and international bodies. In March 2013 MDAC participated in a training event on combatting ill-treatment against people with disabilities in Nigeria. MDAC also supports participants from Africa to participate in its summer course, “Mental Disability Law in Practice” at the Central European University in Budapest. So far, participants have come from Egypt, Ghana, Ethiopia, Tanzania, Uganda and South Africa. We encourage African participants to apply. 

Advocacy: MDAC continues to advocate for CRPD ratification and implementation in Africa and has contributed by providing written comments in the development of legislations and disability action plan. For example, in January 2012, together with Mental Health World Wide, MDAC sent a letter to the Ghanaian Government advocating for CRPD ratification and encouraged the parliament to pass the Mental Health Bill which had been pending for over six years. In May 2012 the bill became law.