Harun M Hassan: Leaders must ensure inclusion of disabled as supreme law provides

Kenya’s road to ensuring people with disabilities’ rights began not with a big march but a ripple in the disability movement in colonial times. In 1959, just a week to the end of the seven-year state of emergency, a 26-year-old visually-impaired Kenyan defied prejudice against disability to tie the knot with a white woman in Nairobi.

The earth-shaking move had, however, been set in motion by the establishment, the previous year, of the Association for the Physically Disabled of Kenya , which engages in mobility aids, therapy and economic empowerment.

A year later, the country’s first disabled persons’ organisation, Kenya Union for the Blind, was formed. Disability would eventually be given a firm place in the national agenda on January 15, 1964, with a march by KUB members to Harambee House, the national seat of power.

In 1980, the country’s first National Year for the Disabled culminated in a harambee that raised Sh20.8 million. Through trustees appointed by then-President Daniel arap Moi, the National Fund for the Disabled of Kenya, which was formed the following year, used the funds to buy Rehema House, in Nairobi’s city centre. More properties were later bought, including New Rehema House and Rehema Place, whose rental income funds its programmes. The sitting President is the fund’s patron.

More progress would be made in the “African Decade of Persons with Disabilities” (1999-2009). In December 2003, then-President Mwai Kibaki, barely out of the wheelchair following a road accident, signed the first ever law advocating the rights of PWDs, The Persons with Disabilities Act 2003. A momentous feat of Lincolnian proportions, it laid down measures and policies for PWD inclusion in all social spheres.

Assistive devices

Through the National Council for Persons with Disabilities, which the Act established, services rendered include providing assistive devices, educational assistance and economic empowerment. Five years later, President Kenyatta, who was Finance minister at the time, allocated a historic Sh200 million to set up the National Development Fund for Persons with Disabilities, which funds the council’s programmes.

In 2010, the tax exemption policy for PWDs was enforced. It applies to the first Sh150,000 monthly, or Sh1.8 million annual, income.

Inclusion of disability as a cross-cutting agenda in performance contracting guidelines for state agencies is a big plus too.

However, the Act alone is no ‘cure all’ for PWD issues. For example, the five per cent allotment of jobs in the public and private sectors for PWDs is still only on paper.

With a growing demand for services, the resources accorded to the council don’t match its huge mandate and mainstreaming disability in public amenities is a challenge.

Public buildings

Deadlines for adapting public service vehicles and public buildings to accommodate PWDs (which were two and five years, respectively, from the date the Act went into operation) are long overdue.

A study by the Open Institute’s Ability Programme in 2019 found that only 19 per cent of Nairobi buildings had above 61 per cent of basic and quality disability access.

In the political scene, despite the constitutional assurances, the table remains above the reach of PWDs. While nominated seats are a step forward, the electorate and structure of our political system still bars them from engaging in competitive politics.

Also, the Act is yet to be in tune with the Constitution. While it puts the PWDs employment threshold at five per cent, the Constitution calls for its progressive implementation.

Signing the Americans with Disabilities Act 1990, President George H. W. Bush proclaimed that PWDs could “now pass through once-closed doors into a bright new era” and the “shameful wall of exclusion” could fall.

An amendment Bill of our PWD Act offering a clearer interpretation of disability rights is at the Attorney-General’s office for review before being taken to Parliament. It’s the hope of the more than six million PWDs that President Kenyatta will, once again, make history by signing it into law. Disability inclusion is national inclusion.

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