Amputees in Sierra Leone wonder if they are being left out of disability rights

From Awoko in Sierra Leone:

Barely 24 hours after the ratification of the UN convention on the Rights of People with Disability, the chairman of the Sierra Leone Amputee Association Alhaji Jusu Jaka Ngobeh expressed serious doubt over their own status in the whole ratification.

“Even though I have not set eyes on the UN Convention on the Rights of People with Disability but by virtue of our current status as amputees we should be considered as part of those with disability,” he stated.

“Listening to the Minister of Social Welfare, Gender and Children’s Affairs Soccoh Kabia on Tuesday this week, he never took cognizance of amputees instead he focused more attention on polio victims and the blind forgetting that we are coming from war situation where there are high percentage of disability from all categories of society, which ranges from sexual base violence victims, war wounded amputees and the list continues” he said.

He also stated that, all the polio victims were and other categories of disabled people were present in Parliament but amputees were never invited to witness the ratification.

He said they have never been consulted on disability matters and as such they are always left out on issues affecting them.

On the reparation exercise he said, some 27,000 amputees have registered with NaCSA under the emergency grant, adding that all those registered stand better chance to benefit from the subsequent reparation packages.