Programme director, Mr Mvelase
Acting Regional Commissioner, Mr Nxele
Ward Councillor of Chesterville, Ms Peer
Representative of the National Commissioner, Ms Mthabela
National Director of QASA, Mr Seirlis
Distinguished guests
Ladies and gentlemen
1. Introduction
Durban has become an important base for our mission to promote human rights and strengthen the development and care of the most vulnerable groups in our correctional centres, and in surrounding communities. We made a firm commitment during our budget vote in June this year to prioritise the needs of our vulnerable groups, including women, children, the youth, persons with disabilities and the elderly. Today, I am honoured to spend the International Day for Persons with Disabilities at this centre.
This important day, 3 December, was proclaimed by the United Nations General Assembly as the International Day for Persons with Disabilities. The theme for this year is: ‘Realising the millennium development goals for all: Empowerment of persons with disabilities and their communities around the world’. This theme challenges all of us to join hands, to work in partnership, in delivering adequate needs-based services to people with disabilities.
2. Background or historical context
Before the advent of democracy, persons with disabilities were harshly discriminated against, irrespective of race, class or gender. Being a black woman living among the poorest of the poor, and facing a disability of one kind or another, made your life even much harder than the rest.
In some communities, giving birth to a child with disabilities was considered to be taboo; it was treated as a curse. The mother of the child was condemned for bringing bad luck to the whole community. Some women with disabilities were sterilised without their consent by parents who believed this will protect them from falling pregnant in the event of sexual abuse or rape.
It is these gender based violations which we are trying to address through interventions such as the 16 Days of Activism Campaign for No Violence Against Women and Children. As we all know, the campaign is an international commemoration spreading over 16 days, from 25 November 10 December. As the Department of Correctional Services, we celebrated the 16 Days of Activism with women offenders, in Polokwane, on 28 November 2009.
Over the years, disability has been associated with charity, care and sympathy, to the detriment of the pride and human dignity of those affected. As we all know, people with disabilities have been perceived as welfare recipients dependant on ‘hand outs’, in spite of their abilities. Development of their talent was unthinkable. People forgot that ‘disability is not inability’.
Cultural beliefs
To a large extent also go a long way in shaping, entrenching marginalisation and sustaining stereotypes about disabilities. This type of social exclusion, like gender oppression, is deeply entrenched through various modes of socialisation. As a result, the stigmatisation and stereotyping of people with disabilities is still prevalent even to this day. This is evident in communities where parents and guardians are often seen hiding children with disabilities behind closed doors, especially when expecting important visitors.
In this state of affairs, people with disabilities do not get the chance of getting education, skills training, and access to health services. Their chances of living happy and fulfilling lives are minimised cruelly, making it difficult even for us to improve their lives as required by the millennium development goals. Placing people with disabilities outside the mainstream of our social, economic and political life would inevitably ensure that they do not benefit from norms and standards built into the millennium development goals.
The eight international development goals
Were agreed to at the Millennium Summit in 2000 and have to be achieved by the year 2015. These entail eradicating extreme poverty and hunger, achieving universal primary education, promoting gender equality and empowering women, improving maternal health, combating HIV and AIDS and other diseases. If we continue to treat people with disabilities as different from the rest of us, and go on hiding them in the dark corners of our houses and deprive them of jobs and other economic opportunities, they will not benefit from all these efforts which are aimed at improving social and economic conditions.
If we do not promote understanding and awareness of the rights and human needs of people with disabilities, they will remain the “wretched of the earth”, with no adequate food, no clean water, no education and inadequate health care.
The sheer arrogance with which we build our homes and public places shows this historical disregard for the needs of people with disabilities. The fact that most people with physical disabilities cannot access some of our health facilities, such as clinics, because of high stairs and absence of ramps, constitutes some form of ‘imprisonment’ for people with disabilities, thus the urgent need to “free our innocent”.
The advent of democracy and the promotion of human rights have paved the way for new and corrective practices around disability issues. Various states, including South Africa, saw the need to develop instruments for ensuring that people with disabilities participate fully and meaningfully in society, as free and equal citizens. It is encouraging to note that the rights of people with disabilities are increasingly receiving due attention and are recognised nationally and internationally.
3. Legislative framework
International instruments
Tireless efforts of the disability rights movement in South Africa, Africa and the world, have resulted in impressive legislation and policies aimed at empowering people with disabilities. Kofi Annan, former Secretary-General of the United Nations, reminded us in a 2007 message on the International Day for people with disabilities, that:
“The commitment to full and effective participation of persons with disabilities in economic and social development is deeply rooted in the principles of the United Nations Charter, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and other human rights instruments. It was reflected in the millennium declaration and the outcomes of all the major conferences of the past decade”.
Our country is a signatory to international treaties protecting the rights of with disabilities, such as the United Nations standard rules on the equalisation of opportunities for persons with disabilities and the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, which came into force on 3 May 2008.
The purpose of the convention is to “promote, protect and ensure the full and equal enjoyment of all human rights by persons with disabilities” (preamble). The convention also recognises the fact that “women and girls with disabilities are subject to multiple discrimination” (article 6). To date, the convention has been signed by 147 countries, including 34 African states.
Legislation and government policies
Our approach to people with disabilities is also guided by the supreme law of our country, which is, the Constitution of the Republic of South Africa (Act 108 of 1996). section 9 (3) stipulates that “the state may not unfairly discriminate, directly or indirectly, against anyone, on one or more grounds, including race, gender, sex, pregnancy, age, disability, religion, conscience, belief, culture, language and birth.
In order to ensure that government departments and other organs of state adhere to the prescripts of the Constitution, the White Paper on an Integrated National Disability Strategy was developed, in 1997.
The national disability strategy mandates government departments and other organs of state to develop and implement disability policies and programmes for the effective integration of disability issues. One of the important components of this strategy is the call for adjustments and or changes in the environment within which the person with disability finds herself or himself. I am glad the community of Chesterville has heeded this call, with the assistance of QASA and Correctional Services. You all deserve a round of applause!
Most importantly, the South African government has made great strides in the promotion of equality and justice, by establishing the new ministry in the Presidency to address the needs of people with disabilities. The new ministry, called Ministry for Women, Children and Persons with Disabilities, consists of the office on the status of disabled persons, the office on the rights of the child and the office on the status of women. It is dedicated to the betterment and enhancement of the quality of life of all South Africans.
This ministry is the principal advocate for issues, concerns and needs of people living with disabilities. However, the ministry does not take away the responsibility of each and every ministry and department, from local to national spheres of government, to put disability issues at the centre of their budgets and annual programming. The Department of Correctional Services has fully embraced government’s strategies and is maintaining a firm position of embracing and complying with the national and international treaties relating to special categories.
4. Challenges and opportunities
Much as the Department of Correctional Services embraces issues of persons with disabilities, the department, like other institutions and organisations, is still facing challenges in the area of promoting reasonable accommodation for persons with disabilities.
We have excellent laws and policies supportive of the rights of people with disabilities. One of the fundamental challenges confronting us is how best to ensure that these laws are applied to the letter, in the promotion of disability rights. Using existing laws as a weapon of mobilisation, we are challenged to develop and provide the necessary support systems that will guarantee the full participation of people with disabilities in the life of our nation.
In the KwaZulu-Natal region
Challenges we face in our correctional centres include the following:
* The adaptation of physical environment (including accommodation facilities) to create a disability friendly environment
* Adequate provision of assistive devices
* Lack of equipment and proper aids to facilitate communication with offenders with disabilities
* Well trained officials to provide services and programmes to offenders with disabilities
* Mobilisation of stakeholders with an interest and passion to provide services to people with disabilities
* Lack of sustainable partnerships.
Most of the above mentioned legacy and related concerns are a reflection of the situation in other institutions in our country, including the private sector.
The Region has 104 offenders with disabilities:
* Durban, 59
* Empangeni, 8
* Pietermaritzburg, 31
* Waterval, 3
* Glencoe, 3
Given these statistics, Correctional Services has a duty to make provision for the humane incarceration of people with disabilities. We will not allow our people to experience the hard times described by Delores Garcia, a woman offender with disabilities serving time in a correctional centre in California. She has this say in Women and Prison: A Site for Resistance:
“Come see through my eyes, live through my body. Come sit in my wheelchair or live in my bed. Try calling for a nurse who never comes. Lie in a bed for two weeks. Smell your trash built up for over a week because no one cleans your room. Try to get something from a locker you can’t reach, unable to hold onto anything because your hands won’t move right, no help from anyone, you are all alone, only the silence of your room to answer you.”
5. Building and strengthening partnerships
This is the most appropriate moment to congratulate our region, the regional Commissioner, Mr Nxele, and the Westville Correctional Centre for their good work which is clearly epitomised by the productive collaboration with the Quadpara Association of South Africa. Also, congratulations to QASA. This partnership is true to the popular brand: Nothing about Us without Us.
This collaboration gave birth to the “Free our Innocent”, a very important project aimed at providing reasonable accommodation to persons with disabilities. The project has already built ramps at the homes of people with disabilities in Chesterville. We welcome and endorse this project which is a product of the constructive partnership between the Department of Correctional Services in this region and QASA.
We align ourselves with the “Free our Innocent” project for the simple reason that it demonstrates beyond doubt that we are driven by caring hearts and ethos of justice to attend to the needs of those among us who live with disabilities. Ours is not only a matter of obligation, or compliance. Working together to affirm people with disabilities is the right thing to do!
We sincerely thank the community of Chesterville for allowing our sentenced offenders to do work for the community. For us, this is an important step in the rehabilitation path on which we set our offenders in the endeavour to mend their ways. We have a duty to encourage offenders to work rather than spend the whole day tossing and turning in bed, watching television.
When we engage them in work activities, offenders get to acquire skills and gain the necessary practical work experience that will help them to start afresh, on a clean slate, on the right side of the law, when they are released. This offender labour, which you have made possible, is important for another reason. It creates a space for the sentenced offenders to plough back to the communities they have offended. It is a way, on their part, of admitting to their wrongs and of expressing remorse.
Accepting them back, as you have done, helps us in ensuring that they get to be properly rehabilitated and reintegrated back into society on release. Offender labour and community service are in this context vehicles for reducing re-offending. They help us cut levels of crime in our country. We see ample opportunities for partnering with communities and other civil society organisations to create an environment conducive for people with disabilities. We have all seen the example of “Free our Innocent”. All of us have a duty to assist in changing perceptions and stereotypes around disability.
Every single person and institution must seize the opportunity to help remove the barriers and to improve the quality of life of people with disabilities through concrete action. This is precisely what we mean when we say “correction is a societal responsibility”. Our challenge is to make South Africa a country fit for people with disabilities.
6. Conclusion
With these words, I officially launch the “Free our Innocent” project. Launching the project is only the beginning; the real test of strength is the actual implementation going-forward. I wish you all the strength and resilience as you tackle challenges still lying ahead, on a daily basis. Lastly, it is our hope and wish that this initiative will continue to restore the inherent dignity of people with disabilities. The rights of people living with disabilities are fundamental human rights. None of us can be free until persons living with disabilities are guaranteed equal access like other citizens.
Facilitation of access would indeed restore the quality of life of people living with disabilities. They have a right to this intervention (restoration of quality of life through promotion of access), it is a fundamental human right, and the state, has an obligation to see to it, that, this right is realised or attained as required by our Constitution, the best constitution in the world. Together, with organised bodies of people with disabilities, we can do more.
I thank you!
Enquiries:
David Hlabane
Cell: 082 052 3499
Issued by: Department of Correctional Services
3 December 2009
