Paradigm shift needed on disability issues: Cde Malinga
THE Advisor to the President on National Disability, Cde Joshua Malinga, has called upon people with disabilities to take part in national activities so that their voices are heard and urged them to vote in this year’s harmonised elections.
In an interview last week, Cde Malinga said people with disabilities should heed the call to register to vote so that they exercise their constitutional right. The voter registration process continues at Zimbabwe Electoral Commission District Offices countrywide until 12 days after the Nomination Court for this year’s elections.
“I challenge people with disabilities that they must be vocal, visible and united. We need unity of purpose. This is our Zimbabwe and we have no other Zimbabwe. We share it with other people but we also have a role to play. One of the statements I don’t forget is that ‘we are our own liberators’. Women liberated themselves, slaves liberated themselves and people with disabilities can also do the same by speaking out loud. They must not be seen to be there, but they must be there,” he said.
Cde Malinga, who is also the National Secretary for the Welfare of the Disabled and the Disadvantaged in the ruling party Zanu-PF politburo, said President Emmerson Mnangagwa had set the ball rolling by hitting the ground running since taking over the country’s top job. He said the President was keen to better the lives of people with disabilities.
Cde Malinga added that the new dispensation has also brought an enhanced political will to put issues to do with disabilities in the forefront of the development process. He pointed out that the general population needed a paradigm shift in treating people with disabilities.
“The paradigm shift will help treat disability issues as a political, economic and cultural issue. Issues to do with people with disabilities are development and human rights issues, and not charity cases. Disability should be on development, economic, political and social agendas. But I was not surprised that the idea of looking at issues affecting people with disabilities will come to the spotlight because after listening to the President during his inauguration speech, he made it clear that he would hit the ground running and wanted a paradigm shift in all spheres of life and indeed disability needs a paradigm shift.
“Society should move from treating people with disabilities as charity and welfare cases but treat disability as a human rights and development issue which needs a pendulum to be pushed 180 degrees in order for it to settle at 90 degrees. But I must say I was pleasantly surprised it was me to push that pendulum as the Advisor to the President on Disability Issues, but I was not surprised the President had issues to do with people with disabilities and even the disadvantaged in mind. His approach to business is people centred,” said Cde Malinga.
He said his office has started working on a strategy document outlining priority areas.
“This strategy is developed to contribute to the national efforts to promote, protect and ensure the full and equal enjoyment of all human rights and fundamental freedoms by all people with disabilities. The office of the Advisor to the President will focus on four critical priority areas, each with key activities and outputs to contribute to key results which are strengthening political commitment, accountability and national capacity for legislation on disability rights, improving inter and intra-ministerial coordination and collaboration as well as coherence between Government and key stakeholders at all levels, including communities on disability issues, strengthening national capacity for mainstreaming disability issues across all Government policies and development programmes and improving knowledge on disability and enhancing the capacity for dialogue and advocacy for more inclusive communities and society.”
He added that while Zimbabwe is a signatory to numerous regional and international protocols, some laws on disability issues remain unenforceable in part because they are yet to be enacted into domestic law by parliament.
Cde Malinga said his office will visit all the country’s provinces to mobilise people with disabilities and also conscientise the general population so that they don’t treat people with disabilities as persona non grata (unacceptable or unwelcome people) but as people with rights, duties and responsibilities and people who must have rights to all services on equal footing with the able bodied people.
“One of the messages I want people with disabilities and the able bodied to carry forward is that people with disabilities are an important constituency with huge numbers. We have to understand that disability is not a condition of one’s body, the condition of the body is just an impairment. Disability is how people with disabilities are treated by society. In most cases, they are excluded from social systems, they are not empowered, children are not sent to school and many do not benefit from social services. What we need is a principle called universal design so that when people make plans they do so with everybody in mind and that is what the new political dispensation is aiming at,” he said.
Cde Malinga said all institutions of governance across all sectors should have a desk that deals with issues to do with people with disabilities.
“Our biggest problem is a small thing called attitude. Attitude produces all our problems in society. In the beginning people with disabilities were treated as animals and killed because people thought such people had no role to play in society and had other mythical beliefs, then came in capitalism which excluded people with disabilities by creating systems unfavourable to such people, but the new dispensation in Zimbabwe brings a departure to this institutionalisation of people with disabilities. Get me right, I am not against charity, but I’m against the manner in which it is practised on people with disabilities. Who said a person with disabilities cannot work and fend for his or her family? Who said they cannot own a farm or business? Who said they cannot go to school? All people with disabilities need is empowerment, just like everybody else.
“They have to be treated as equals in society. I have come across situations where someone says ‘I have three children and a disabled one’ and the one said to be disabled is taken away from the family and friends and put somewhere. But the new thinking is keep that child at home with family and friends but change the environment so that the child remains comfortable. In the words of one former American president— a nation or a country will be judged by the way it treats its disabled.”