Issued by African National Congress - Parliament
17 February 2003
Deputy Speaker,
Honorable President and Deputy President and Honorable Members.
The disability sector has recently lost two important activists in the Disability Movement, Cde Maria Rantho (former Member of Parliament) and Cde Boyce Willemse (NCOP MP). I would like to pay tribute to them.
I would like to thank our President for time and again bringing up disability issues. We need to continue bringing it up and not sweeping it under the carpet, like some people like to do and to show that we do not exist. I say that because people with disabilities still face discrimination at all levels and it's our responsibility to make other aware of disability issues.
I would like to inform you that wherever I go, people ask me what work am I doing? I tell them I'm a Member of Parliament. Then they ask who or what party put me there. I say the ANC and I also inform them that only the ANC would put someone who is Deaf in Parliament. I have yet to see other political parties follow the ANC's lead.
The ANC believes that addressing the specific needs of those in the target group (women, children, elderly, disabled) stands at the center of our effort to build a better life for all. To establish the new South Africa as a caring society, the empowerment and affirmation of these groups is critical to ensuring a people-centered and people-driven transformation, a massive education campaign is necessary for the targeted groups and broader society to make them aware of their fundamental rights as enshrined in the constitution of the democratic Republic of South Africa.
In his speech on Friday, Cde President has mentioned that there will be another increase in social grants this year; the expansion of services to the people will also include disability pensions. Last year the ANC set things rolling by calling people to register for Social grants, which includes disability grants. There are still many people with disabilities not registered to receive grants for different reasons, such as having no means or access to go to departments to fill in forms to receive grants, disable people have a right to receive disability grants and that message must go out.
I hope that people with disabilities or people who understand and work closely with people with disabilities will be included to become multi skilled community development workers. They can also go out to people with disabilities to assist them in the community.
We welcome the provision of free health care to persons with disabilities.
Hearing Aids, alone, can cost from R4 000 to R7 000 and parents just cannot afford that kind of cost. There are also other health related issues, faced by people with disabilities that are lifelong and ongoing. I wonder if some of you realize that for a child to sit in a wheelchair, unsuitable to a child's statue, can cause other deformities as the child is growing up. A specially modified wheelchair can cost thousand.
We can make the best laws in Parliament to better the lives of our people, but we need we members of the public to be aware about the laws. We need the public to act or work together with government to better the lives of people with Disabilities.
Just at the end of last year during my constituency work I met a Deaf teacher in Umtata who said that she was once arrested for using Sign Language. Would you arrest someone for speaking Xhosa or Zulu?
A mother informed me that Telkom does not want her Deaf son to be made permanent because he cannot "talk" properly. He must first attend Speech Therapy. This is discrimination.
Public Awareness, sensitivity about Disability and knowledge about Disability rights need to go out to the people. Research shows that to be able to integrate Disability issues into policies of government departments, requires commitment of senior managers to address disability issues. We find that disability issues are places at the bottom of the list of priorities in departments.
Different government departments and their staff will also have to educate about the right use terminology. During my constituency work this year, I was informed that there are still people in high positions in the courts who still refer to Deaf people as "Deaf and Dumb". If attitudes in places like the courts do not change we can imagine how slow is the change of attitudes for people of the general public.
Madam Speaker, I would encourage the Honorable Members of Parliament, if they do no have one yet, to contact DPSA and obtain this little booklet, which are an empowerment tool and a Pocket Guide on Disability Equity.
Apart from the acts we already have such as the Promotion of Equality and Prevention of Unfair Discrimination Act (Act No.4 of 2000), The Employment Equity Act (Act No.55 of 1998, The South African School Act (Act No.84 of 1996), we have seen additional Acts, passed to better the lives of people with Disability such as the Mental Health Care Bill, adopted on the 30th May 2002, which has particular bearing on people with intellectual disabilities. The Broadcasting Amendment Act passed in 2002 is looked at in a positive light as it states that the South Africa Broadcasting Corporation has to make television programmes accessible to those who are Deaf and those who are Blind.
Yes, Madam Speaker, we are indeed at work to better the lives of people with Disabilities in South Africa.
On 7th February last week, a march took place in all provinces, where MEC in the various Department of Education received the Memorandum. The purpose of the march was to advocate for and create awareness of South African Sign Language as the cornerstone of Deaf Education, and as a basic human right of all Deaf people. We thank DPSA for their support in this march. We thank the Department of Education for the attention given to the memorandum and we are hoping to have a response soon.
The African Decade of Disabled People has been declared for the years 1999 to 2009. The Office on the Status of Disabled Persons will hold an African Regional consultative conference so as to develop ways in which people living with disabilities can interact with the New Partnership for African Development and to come on an African position on the UN Convention on the protection and promotion of the rights of disabled persons.
South Africa is becoming more and more popular tourist destination and that includes more and more international conferences happening here. Deaf Federation of South Africa is hoping to win the bid to be able to host the Fifteenth World Congress for the World Federation of the Deaf in 2007. WFD is an international non-government organization in official liaison with ECOSOC, UNESCO, ILO and WHO.
South Africa is on the shortlist to present our bid in Canada later this year. If we win the bid to host this congress, I think it will be the first time that the WFD congress meets in Africa, and the first time there will ever be an international conference for people with disabilities.
Madam Speaker, Let us also use this event to make this century an African Century and put the worlds' focus on Africa. We will continue to work to better the lives of South African Citizens with Disabilities.