Disability is not Inability

:: Special constituencies for people with disabilties

From the days of the bomas draft till now the battle for special representation for vulnerable groups has been fought and progress scant.

It began with the Bomas draft that five percent of the seats in parliament and indeed ALL public service positions be reserved for vulnerable groups. This was then people with disdabilties and the youth but has since grown to include people living with HIV/AIDS.

However while it seems the gender equality battle is coming to roost the disability battle is yet to find serious supporters from the political high table. Most support is still based on the principle of "tokenism" led by and enshirned in the minds of Kenyans by many a politcal class.

The need to see the independednce and dignity of people with disabiltieis as worthy of a constituency determined not by geographical boundaries is yet to be accepted.

This is fortunate that the inclusion of women into the CDF commitees (as ordered by the President 2007 NEW YEAR SPEECH) has seen an opportunity for women with disabilities to be included in some of the CDF committees. This too when the proposal for an affirmative action to select 50 women into parliamanet some said this number included people (women) with disabilties. Questions however arise as to the men with disabilities. their representation would be unavailable and this would be discriminatory.

What people with disabilties demand is special seats founded on affirmative action. (This affirmative action is based on the inability of the the Government to effectively include them in the development structures). This would provide leeway for some time for PWD to lobby for better representation in development structrues after which the affirmative policy can be withdrawn.

The special seats could be regionally distributed among both geographical and gender and type of disability. Those to be submitted for nomination by various political parties should however be elected by their constituent with disabilities. The Visually imapaiered would elect from among them so do the Hearing imapired and the physical, they should be of equal gender and from the eight provinces.

disabilitykenya.