Disability Rights and Inclusiveness in Africa: The Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, challenges and change

Grassroots researchers examine the barriers and ways of implementing the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) in Africa.

Many have praised the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD), first adopted by the UN in 2006, as a revolutionary step towards disability rights in Africa. But how real is the progress towards equality for persons with physical disabilities, mental health difficulties, blindness, deafness or albinism? What are the barriers to the CRPD's successful implementation on the continent, and how might we enforce inclusiveness and equality among those disadvantaged? This book brings together the findings of researchers in Ghana, Cameroon, Nigeria, Ethiopia, Uganda, Kenya, Zimbabwe and South Africa to offer grassroots' perspectives on the challenges and possibilities of achieving disability rights under the CRPD. Challenging the generally optimistic view presented to date, the contributors provide evidence-based trenchant critiques of the Convention, highlight the ways in which disability rights are interpreted in varying contexts and with different disabilities, and examine particular issues in relation to children and women. Finally, the contributors suggest ways of moving forward and achieving disability rights in Africa.

JEFF D. GRISCHOW is Associate Professor, Department of History, Wilfrid Laurier University, Canada and author of Shaping Tradition : Civil Society, Community and Development in Colonial Northern Ghana, 1899-1957 (2006).

MAGNUS MFOAFO-M'CARTHY is Associate Professor, Department of Social Work, Wilfrid Laurier University, and has over 15 years of social work practice experience in New York, British Columbia and Ontario. Hehas published articles in various journals, including International Journal for Equity in Health and International Journal of Mental Health.

Mikyas Abera (PhD) is an Assistant Professor of Sociology at the University of Gondär. His research interests include education, urbanization, psychosocial rehabilitation, and gender, among others. Currently, Dr. Abera manages the Mastercard Foundation Scholars Program at the University of Gondar, a scholarship program for talented east African youth with disabilities.

Charlotte Capri is a South African clinical psychologist whose energy for advocacy is driven by her political science background. As a clinician-researcher in Intellectual Disability, she dedicates her career to the needs of the Western Cape Department of Health (DoH) and University of Cape Town (UCT). She has worked clinically in designated psychiatric public health Intellectual Disability settings since 2010; and attends to Intellectual Disability research, as well as academic, institutional service and teaching and training responsibilities for the Department of Psychiatry and Mental Health (UCT).

Tsitsi Chataika is a disability studies and inclusive education Associate Professor and consultant. She is the Chairperson of the Educational Foundations Department, University of Zimbabwe. Tsitsi has several publications including the 2019 Outstanding Taylor and Francis (Routledge) Handbook Award Winner in the Social Sciences, The Routledge Handbook of Disability Activism.