Date: 03/12/2006
Source: The Presidency
Title: Mlambo-Ngcuka: International Day of Disabled Persons


Address delivered by the Deputy President, Ms Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka, at the Celebration of the International Day of Disabled Persons, Durban International Convention Centre

KwaZulu-Natal MEC of Agriculture, Mtholephi Mthimkhulu
Representatives from disability civil society organisations
Distinguished guests
Ladies and gentlemen
Today, on 3 December 2006, we come together as a nation to celebrate the International Day of Disabled Persons to further affirm government's commitment to provide a better life for all, including people with disabilities, who are among the most disadvantaged and vulnerable of our country.

In celebrating this day, together with the rest of the world, we pride ourselves on the strides we have made in trying to improve the quality of life of people with disabilities but we are also acutely aware of the challenges that lie ahead of us to do even more than what we have already done so far.

Improving the quality of life of all our people is a continuous effort and we will continue enhancing our service delivery systems to achieve these goals that we have set ourselves as government. In this work we are also guided by the Freedom Charter which said "South Africa belongs to all who live in it enjoying equal rights and opportunities."

Key among these is the challenge of changing attitudes of our society when it comes to people with disabilities. The general public must understand that having a certain disability does not mean incapability at the level of thinking and performance.

We need programmes especially to respond to the following areas:

* human rights
* economic empowerment
* skills and education
* work opportunities
* institutional capacity

People with partial disabilities must be given jobs and taken out of the dependency on the grant system. We also must ensure that shelters that employ the disabled function better and that they create an environment that is conducive to a lively economic activity.

Disabled children need to be given educational opportunities that will catapult them out of a position of disadvantage. The greatest disability is self-doubt. We have many examples of great South Africans that have excelled despite their disability. People such Natalie du Toit and Terrence Parkins, two swimming champions that constantly remind us that indeed the greatest disability is self-doubt. These two champions continue to challenge able-bodied competitors and continue to triumph over them.

Today we say out loud and remind ourselves of the slogan the Office on the Status of Disabled Persons (OSDP) and the Department of Public Service and Administration have taught us, "Prejudice is the worst form of disability!" As South Africans, we do not, and will not, condone any form of prejudice.

While we have made much progress around putting policies and structures in place, we now have to deal with the issue of ensuring that the implementation and the monitoring of these policies is further accelerated. We need to accelerate the speed and pace of delivery of these policies for the disabled persons.

Theme

Our celebration this year centres around the theme: "Age of hope: Empowering people with disabilities through equal opportunities." This theme has a particular focus on Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) and calls upon all of us to put our development objectives and goals around disability into practical action. We must all act to protect the rights and the dignity of people with disabilities and we must act decisively to improve their quality of life.

The developments and innovations in the ICT sector provide an opportunity for people with disabilities to participate fully and effectively in the labour market and thus contribute to the economic development of the country on an equal basis with everyone else.

16 Days of Activism for No Violence against Women and Children

The 3rd of December falls within the period of the 16 Days of Activism for No Violence against Women and Children and therefore we must also speak out loud and clear against the prevalent abuse of women and children with disabilities in particular. In direct response to the unacceptably high levels of sexual violence, government has now produced the Bill order to:

* afford complainants (mostly women and children) the maximum and least traumatising protection the law can provide
* create special crimes for children and persons with mental disabilities in recognition of their inherent vulnerability
* update and modernise our jurisprudence in the area of crimes of a sexual nature
* provide for transitional provisions relating to tackle the scourge of human trafficking
* introduce measures which seek to synergise and co-ordinate the efforts of the relevant organs of state so as to enable them to give full expression to the objects of the Bill.

National Policy Framework

Unusually for legislation, the Bill provides for an inter-sectoral committee consisting of the Director General's of Justice, Health, National Commissioner of SAPS, Correctional Services and the National Director of Public Prosecutions to develop and implement a National Policy Framework which will give practical expression on the ground to inter-alia better services and progressive realization of treatment options for victims within available resources.

There is a lot of abuse that women and children with disabilities suffer, even to the extent of children with mental disabilities being chained and locked up in backyards of houses. We cannot keep quiet when we know that these things are happening in our communities. We need to expose these horrible deeds and in that way we can be proud that we are indeed making a contribution in acting against the abuse of women and children with disabilities.

The messages that are transmitted through the media during the campaign of the 16 Days, hardly ever place a focus on the abuse of women and children with disabilities and yet these are the most vulnerable groups and the abuse they suffer is often hidden and not exposed within their communities.

The Sexual Violence Bill should be a tool to protect women with disabilities against the prevalent abuse. Women with disabilities should have equal access to the criminal justice system and barriers experienced by these women should be dealt with within the Bill taking into account various disability types, e.g. what the specific barriers are there for blind women, deaf women, women with mobility problems and women with mental disabilities.

Government service delivery

Our government is committed to increasing momentum in ensuring appropriate service delivery to people with disabilities. The opening of the OSDP, in 1997 by the President was a major development in the history of our country. Its mandate was to create an enabling environment that will lead to the full participation and the equalisation of opportunities for persons with disabilities at all levels of South African society.

Some of the key policies that we have implemented which have been hugely beneficial to people with disabilities include the Employment Equity Act, the Skills Development Act and the Labour Relations Act which are landmark acts when it comes to people with disabilities.

These laws ensure that all companies and businesses employ people who are disabled, and those companies that do not comply with the set guidelines and regulations developed by the Department of Labour run the risk of being exposed and heavily fined by government.

Once people with disabilities are employed it is also the responsibility of those companies to ensure that their working conditions are conducive, in terms of ensuring that buildings and infrastructure is available for easy access of disabled employees.

The laws also empower watchdog organisations and individuals to monitor closely whether companies adhere to these policies or not, if companies do not respect our policies people are empowered to report malpractices to the Department of Labour. The laws that we have spoken about ensure that the rights of people with disabilities are protected whilst at the same time they open labour market opportunities for them.

As government we need to continuously review our service delivery to people with disabilities at a practical level and hold ourselves to account on our mandates to provide these services. Some of the services provided by government do not reach people with disabilities especially in rural areas. To resolve this, maybe each department and government agency should be encouraged to conduct on their own, an audit of their services that need to benefit people with disabilities and assess on an ongoing basis what impact or lack thereof, their services are having. Government departments should also be encouraged to interact more proactively with organisations of people with disabilities so that they can craft programmes that are relevant to their needs. In this regard, specific Izimbizo programmes with people with disabilities can be conducted by Ministers responsible for various departments.

Economic empowerment for people with disabilities

With all the advances that we have made as a country over the past eleven years to ensure the improvement of the quality of life for people with disabilities, the issue of employment and economic empowerment remains a challenge that we all need to address together in partnership.

To this end, we must prioritise skills training programmes for people with disabilities, including those already working in sheltered workshops to enable them to run these facilities as viable businesses with potential for income generation.

Our government is also mindful of the fact that there are disabled people with entrepreneurial skills and talents, hence we have also made sure that their business initiatives are supported through the preferential procurement policies where public sector tenders give preference to disabled people companies.

People with disabilities aspiring to start their own small businesses should be supported and given priority by the existing agencies. Some of the existing agencies need to be transformed to the extent where they can understand and be sensitive to the specific needs of people with disabilities.

Such partnerships would be in line with the principle of self-representation by people with disabilities which should be at the centre of all initiatives involving people with disabilities. It is this principle that also translates in a very powerful way to the slogan of the South African disability rights movement which says "Nothing about us without us."

This is about the self worth and dignity for people with disabilities and ensures that a person with a disability is continually at the centre of all decisions affecting him or her. We all have a role to play in ensuring that people with disabilities are afforded job and skills development opportunities so that they can be self-sufficient and not rely on disability grants.

United Nations Convention on Disability

In advancing the rights of people with disabilities, we as the country continue to play a central role and make our contribution at the international level. We are currently involved in a process of developing the United Nations Convention on the Rights of People with Disabilities.

Our government will commit itself to implementing the Convention on Disability and this will give further impetus to our efforts of equalising opportunities for people with disabilities in different spheres of societal life.

Ten year review process

Government's commitment to improving service delivery to the nation is further demonstrated by initiatives like the Ten Year Review process that was undertaken to determine the advances made and the gaps and challenges still to be addressed.

As part of this process we also considered the review specific to gender, disability and children's rights to enable us to assess government's progress towards realising, among others, disability rights and deepening public discourse on overcoming discrimination towards people with disabilities.

The gaps identified in the ten year review, particularly with respect to the improvement of the quality of life of persons with disabilities, should be systematically addressed and in this process, people with disabilities and their representative organisations should hold government accountable and in a partnership, inform government of the areas of concern and how these could be addressed.

I take this opportunity to encourage all of us here today to continue doing the best we can to contribute in the effort of creating a better life for people with disabilities, especially those in the rural areas of our country.

I also thank all of those people who have given and continue to give the necessary support to the cause of people with disabilities. Your activism in raising awareness on disability goes a long way in dispelling the myths and addressing the negative attitudes towards people with disabilities.

I thank you.

Issued by: The Presidency
3 December 2006