Human rights lawyer and the Member of Parliament for the Madina Constituency, Hon. Francis-Xavier Sosu, has engaged stakeholders in the Ghanaian disability fraternity on a Private Member’s Bill he is championing to improve the lot of persons with disabilities in the country.
The “Minimum Employment of Persons with Disabilities Bill” seeks to ensure a 5% mandatory minimum employment of Persons with Disabilities (PWDs) in all public and private institutions in Ghana.
The meeting, held at the Accra Rehabilitation Centre on Monday, April 8, 2024, aimed to brief the disability community on the initiative and to seek inputs to fine-tune the bill.
According to Hon. Sosu, persons with disabilities form a significant portion of Ghana’s population and need to be empowered economically and in every other sphere of life.
He asserted that a law mandating companies to reserve 5% of their workforce for PWDs would essentially result in the employment of some 670,000 persons with disabilities, who make up the employable population of the 1,149,698 persons with disabilities in Ghana. This, he said, would greatly contribute to the achievement of Sustainable Development Goals 1 to 10.
The major provisions in the proposed bill include the imposition of the duty to employ persons with disabilities, the obligation of all persons with disabilities to work, the prohibition of street or public space begging, loitering, or selling by persons with disabilities, the rights of persons with disabilities to work, non-discrimination against PWDs in the workplace, offenses and punishments, among several others.
The stakeholders welcomed the initiative and made various inputs to improve the bill, including advocating for provisions for parents, particularly mothers of children with disabilities, PWDs without formal education, and the need for the 5% quota to be evenly spread across various disability types, among others.
In an interview with the media after the meeting, Hon. Francis-Xavier Sosu expressed satisfaction with the outcome of the engagement and hinted at further consultations to refine the bill before its presentation to Parliament.
Lack of employment opportunities is one of the major challenges for persons with disabilities in Ghana, leading to a very high rate of poverty among them.
Since 2022, Hon. Sosu has been working to push for the mandatory 5% minimum employment law, which is expected to be a game-changer.
SOURCE: DisabilityNewsGH.com