Speaking address to be delivered by Minister in the Presidency for Women, Youth and Persons with Disabilities, Ms Maite Nkoana-Mashabane, MP at the launch of Disability Rights Awareness Month and its calendar events: 3 November - 3 December 2022

Today, we officially launch the start of Disability Rights Awareness Month. The theme for this year’s DRAM is “Empowering Persons with Disabilities through resourceful, sustainable and safe environments”.

Our launch is in line with the International Day of Persons with Disabilities (IDPD), under the theme “Not All Disabilities are Visible.”

As a Department, our approach to DRAM is informed by a series of wide consultations with the disability rights sector and government departments.

This is grounded in the principle of “Nothing for us, without us”.

Our commitment to the unique needs, experiences, and expertise of persons with disabilities is premised on international, regional and national frameworks.

At an international level, South Africa ratified the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (UNCRPD) and its Optional Protocol without reservation in 2007.

In 2013 Cabinet approved the Disability Rights Awareness Month starting from the 3 November to – 3 December.

A critical moment and true display of political commitment was in the publishing of the White Paper on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities in December 2015.

We have the necessary policy frameworks and legislation, we now need to move into implementation.

Therefore, we must move forward in terms of introducing specific priorities and achievable targets to ensure the progressive realisation of the rights of persons with disabilities in South Africa.

Ladies and gentlemen,

Part of today’s launch includes sharing our calendar of events for DRAM. 

I will introduce the themes and the weekly sub-themes that will inform our interventions between the 3 November – 3 December 2022.

This year’s overall theme is shaped by the priorities of the State and introduces the Mid Term Strategic Framework targets. 

From the previous year to date, the department has worked on the priorities of the Presidential Working Group on Disabilities and there has been reasonable progress on these priorities which include:

• Capacitating the disability coordination function at the epicentre of all spheres of government
• Accelerating domestication of the UNCRPD. This includes the ratification and domestication of the AU Protocol on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities and the Marrakesh Treaty to be ratified on Access to Print Materials for Persons with Print Disabilities. As well as taking the White Paper on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities into law. 
• Transformation and strengthening of the National Disability Rights Machinery as a meaningful platform for strategic engagement and collaboration needs to be fast-tracked.
• The creation of a sustainable funding mechanism for the sector to increase footprint and impact of programmes of national organisations.
• Strengthening the extent of self-representation by persons with disabilities across strategic institutions. This includes their representation in governance structures, and strengthening meaningful involvement of representative organisations in the design and conceptualisation phase of policies and services and monitoring processes.
• Accelerating the pace of providing access to quality inclusive education for children with disabilities out of school. This entails improving and strengthening reasonable accommodation support measures for learners in both special and ordinary schools. In addition, we must advocate to mainstream persons with disabilities in ordinary schools ensuring all learning materials are accessible, regardless of where the learner is located.
• Accelerating the pace of meaningful and sustainable economic liberation of persons with disabilities. This includes reversing the trend of learnerships replacing decent work opportunities, promoting SMME development, and public sector procurement.
• Strengthening community based independent living support services through the development of personal assistance services, among others
• Finding sustainable solutions for the huge backlogs in the provisioning of assistive devices. This deprives children with disabilities from effective development and learning that reduces their potential economic activity.
• Accelerating access to the right of autonomy and legal capacity for persons with psychosocial and intellectual disabilities, inclusive of review of the Mental Health Care Act, quality of care in mental health institutions and developing community-based services as alternatives to institutional care.
• Accelerating the recognition of South African Sign Language as an official language.

The progress on priorities over the past year displays a great deal of leadership in advancing the rights of persons with disabilities.

However, much more can be done by us all.

Ladies and gentlemen,

The department is in the process of developing an overarching legislation on disability rights as mentioned above.

South Africa will soon ratify the protocol on the African Human and People’s Rights Charter for Persons with Disabilities in Africa.

We are investigating the possibility of legislating these frameworks into the Disability Rights Act.

I call on all government departments to be involved in the process of developing the National Disability Rights Agenda as required by the Mid Term Strategic Framework targets.

We need more government departments to participate in the activities and events during Disability Rights Awareness Month as part of their commitment to integration of persons with disabilities.

As a department, we have received a list of events from other government departments on the interventions they will be facilitating during DRAM. 

We still encourage other departments that have not yet submitted their calendar of events to do so.

Ladies and gentlemen,

The current events calendar welcomes new event recommendations from all sectors and it will be shared widely as an ongoing update.

The events calendar for the month will be in line with the sub-themes that are derived from the government priorities. These includes:

Week 1 (07 - 11 Nov)

National Priority 6: Social cohesion and safe communities

Sub-Theme 1: Resourcing the advancement of accessible communication, information and technology methodologies for persons with disabilities.

Week 2 (14 - 18 Nov)

National Priority 3: Education, Skills and Health       

Sub-Theme 2: Adequate resourcing and supply of all economic and health related services for persons with disabilities.

Week 3 (21 - 25 Nov)

National Priority 6: Social Cohesion and Safer Communities     

Sub-Theme 3: Capacity building on entrepreneurship and business skilling for persons with disabilities.

Week 4 (28 Nov – 03 Dec)

National Priority 5: Social cohesion and safe communities

This week coincides with the 16 Days of Activism against Women and Children Campaign Sub-Theme: Resourcing the state to ensure provision for access to justice for persons with disabilities.

Yesterday we concluded the Presidential Summit on Gender Based Violence and Femicide. What came out quite strongly is that women and youth with disabilities are vulnerable to intersecting forms of violence.

We must account, accelerate and amplify efforts to ensure that the persons with disabilities are effectively covered in the National Strategic Plan on Gender Based Violence and Femicide.

Members of the media,                                       

In addition, the Department in partnership with the National School of Government has concluded a Memorandum of Agreement to roll out the Disability Inclusion Training.

The training will serve to improve government departments capacity to implement the policy directives and deliverables of the White Paper on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities.

The department through its National Disability Rights Machinery is in the process of finalizing the National Coordinating Mechanism to align the disability rights agenda with the policy and legislative environment.

The National Disability Rights Machinery must be strengthened to embed the White Paper on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities within the work of the FOSAD Clusters.

The fifth annual progress report on implementation of the White Paper on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities will assist in providing measures to close the gaps in the implementation of policy and service delivery.

The implementation matrix must be reviewed to simplify reporting measures and to incorporate the new reporting obligations.

Reporting institutions must ensure disability inclusion in planning (Annual Performance Plans), monitoring, evaluation and budgeting.

Reporting institutions must fast-track the implementation of the recommendations for the approved first annual report, and implementation of the Medium Term Strategic Framework (MTSF) disability specific indicators.

The department will work with government departments to capacitate them to ensure disability responsive budgeting, planning and reporting. All government institutions must comply with the disability reporting requirements and report timeously.

In conclusion,

DRAM remains the most important period of this administration to evaluate the progress that has been made to uphold the rights of persons with disabilities.

We have the laws and policies in place, we just need commitment and collaboration on the fast tracking of implementation.

Let us advance the mandate of building a inclusive and transformative society where the needs of all are handled with equal priority and equitable resourcing.