Disability Act : Group Advocates complete implementation of law

An Advocacy group for women, has called for the full implementation of disability act to ameliorate the plight of women and girls with disabilities, especially those in the rural communities.

Addressing journalists in Abuja, the group identified the need to Amplify visibility, and access to justice for women and girls with disabilities on gender based violence.

Violence against women and girls with disabilities is a human right issue that is related to both gender and disability based discrimination and exclusion.

These two factors result in an extremely high risk of violence against women and girls in the disability community.

Reports shows that there are higher rate of violence against women with disabilities than against women without disabilities.

Despite this high risk, there are lack of notable action by the stakeholders beyond words of mouth regarding the risks of abuse, and barriers to seeking redress and remedy by women and girls with
disabilities.

Kolawole Jayeoba is the programme director of Advocacy for women with disability initiative.

He Believes that if laws established to protect human right are applied it will go along way to reduce the plight of women and girls with disability.

The cost of violence against women and girls prevents women and girls from realizing their full potential as members of society.

The Rights of people living with Disabilities in Nigeria has been a hot subject that has never been properly addressed despite the passage of the Disability Act by the National Assembly in 2014.

Before then it took the personal interventionm of current Minister of Transport, Senator Gbemisola Saraki, then the serving Senator representing Kwara Central Senatorial District for a ramp for people living with Disabilities to be built at the National Assembly to ease access.

The full implementation of the Disability Act of 2014 will go a long way in protecting the right of these group of Nigerians as against the current piecemeal approach to its implementation esepecially by States.