Accra, Sept. 4, GNA - Hajia Alima Mahama, Minister of Women and Children's Affairs (MOWAC), on Monday asked disabled persons, particularly blind persons who used their children as guards to beg for alms on the streets, to stop or face the full rigorous of the law. She said such people should rather take advantage of the capitation grant introduced by the Government and take their children to school instead of keeping them in the streets and thereby impairing their development.

Hajia Mahama said this in a speech read on her behalf by Mrs Marylin Amponsah-Annan, Director in-charge of International Desk for Children, MOWAC, at the opening of a three-day meeting and training programme of the Women's Committee of African Union of the Blind (AFUB) at Dodowa, near Accra.

AFUB is an African non-governmental organization working for the rights and opportunities of blind and partially sighted people in Africa.

The meeting which is on the theme: "Visually Impaired Women Taking Up The Decade Challenge" is being attended by participants from Ghana, Kenya, Tanzania, Congo, South Africa, Rwanda, Burkina Faso and Morocco. The Ghana Association of the Blind in collaboration with AFUB is hosting the meeting, which is being sponsored by the Danish Association of the Blind to train and sharpen the advocacy skills of blind women to enable them to advocate their needs in their respective home countries. Hajia Mahama said in Ghana it had been conservatively estimated that 10 per cent of the population had some form of disability with the highest disability being sight and accounting for about 59 per cent of all disabled persons.

She said blindness or disability in general was not inability, so disabled persons needed to get involved in developmental programmes to enable the public to move their communities or nations forward. Hajia Mahama recounted what the physically challenged, particularly women in Africa, faced as lack of access to many public places like schools, banks, hospitals, churches or mosques and offices. They also faced massive cultural, social and legal stigmatization and discrimination in employment.

"In addition to all these problems, the blind persons, because of their peculiar challenge, are sometimes abused sexually by people in their community," Hajia Mahama said.

She noted that fortunately, there was a new phenomenon all over the world to right the wrongs that healthy persons had inflicted on the disabled.

Hajia Mahama said the World Programme of Action Concerning Disabled Persons, for instance, emphasized the rights of persons with disabilities to have the same opportunities as other citizens on an equal footing and not as a privilege.

Ghana, she indicated, passed the Disability Law to address some of the challenges that disabled persons encountered in the society. She advised disabled women to join the District Mutual Health Issuance Scheme to enable them to access the needed healthcare. Mr Yaw Ofori Debrah, President of Ghana Association of the Blind (GAB) and Chairman of the Ghana Federation of the Disabled, urged men to accept the challenge to break down all barriers of discrimination against women and give them opportunity to excel. He also appealed to MOWAC to create a separate desk for the disabled at the Ministry to holistically address the issues affecting them effectively.

Mr John Heilbrunn, Head of International Department, Danish Association of the Blind, said issues of the disabled were currently being given the highest priority at the international level since an ad hoc committee of the UN General Assembly had recently adopted a draft convention that sought to promote and protect the human rights of disabled persons all over the world.

He said the convention would soon be discussed for final adoption by member nations at the upcoming General Assembly sessions to be held before the end of the year.

Mr Heilbrunn said at the AFUB meeting, participants would be trained in mainstreaming women issues, information and communication skills and understanding the ideology of the blindness movement. Madam Roseweter Mudarikwa, Chairperson of the Women's Committee, AFUB, said the saying that "behind every successful man there was a woman" should be changed to "besides every successful man is a woman" because women were more of partners of men in the advancement society. She said the needs of blind women must first be met because they were women and not because they were physically impaired persons. Mr Eleazar T. Plahar, Director of GAB, said two other separate leadership training programmes would be organised for the Board Members and Women's Wing of the Association on Thursday and Saturday. 4 Sept. 06