P Mlambo-Ngcuka: International Day of Disabled Persons

3 December 2006

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