Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities

List of issues in relation to the initial report of Ghana *

A.Purpose and general obligations (arts. 1–4)

1.Please provide information on:

(a)Measures adopted for the comprehensive review of policies and legislation in order to align them with the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, in particular through the removal of derogatory terms referring to persons with disabilities, such as “unsound mind”, “idiot”, “insane”, “imbecile”, “lunatic” and “mental derangement”;

(b)The activities undertaken or planned and the resources allocated to implement the national strategic plan on disability and the annual action plans on disability developed by the National Council on Persons with Disability;

(c)The timeline and process of the review that was to be undertaken of the Persons with Disability Act in order to align its provisions, in particular, the definition of persons with disabilities, with the Convention;

(d)The elaboration and adoption of an action plan for strengthening the promotion and protection of the rights of persons with disabilities in compliance with the Persons with Disability Act;

(e)The consultations conducted with persons with disabilities through their representative organizations on the design and monitoring of legislation, policies, programmes, regulations and other relevant measures, including those that focus on the rights of persons with disabilities, such as measures taken in the context of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic;

(f)Steps taken and timelines of plans towards the signing and ratification of the protocol to the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights on the rights of persons with disabilities in Africa.

B.Specific rights (arts. 5–30)

Equality and non-discrimination (art. 5)

2.Please provide information on:

(a)Measures taken to ensure that anti-discrimination laws and policies are in line with the Convention, taking into account the Committee’s general comment No. 6 (2018) on equality and non-discrimination, and to recognize denial of reasonable accommodation as discrimination;

(b)Legal and other measures taken to prevent and address multiple and intersectional discrimination faced by persons with disabilities, in particular women and girls with disabilities, persons with intellectual disabilities and persons with psychosocial disabilities, and persons with albinism;

(c)Legal remedies and reporting mechanisms available to persons with disabilities for the elimination of discrimination and measures taken to ensure effective, accessible and affordable access to those remedies for all persons with disabilities;

(d)The number and percentage of claims of disability-based discrimination, disaggregated by sex, age, type of court, geographical location, sector in which the discrimination occurred and sanctions imposed;

(e)Measures taken to prevent, investigate and sanction all forms of discrimination against persons with disabilities, including children with disabilities.

Women with disabilities (art. 6)

3.Please provide information on:

(a)Specific measures taken since the submission of the State party report to increase access of women and girls with disabilities to justice, political and public life, education, income-generating activities and health care, including sexual and reproductive health-care services, and to change negative attitudes towards them, ensuring that strict penalties are imposed on perpetrators of violations against them;

(b)The “leave no one behind” programme, implemented in 2018 by the Ghana Federation of Disability Organizations to prevent violence against women with disabilities, children with disabilities or albinism and people with HIV/AIDS;

(c)Efforts to prevent and sanction harmful traditional practices, such as female genital mutilation and the tradition known as trokosi;

(d)Measures taken to establish a formal mechanism that is recognized to ensure the effective participation of women with disabilities through their representative organizations in policy development and decision-making, programme development, implementation, evaluation and the monitoring process of laws and regulations aimed at addressing disability and gender issues at national and local level.

Children with disabilities (art. 7)

4.Please provide information on the measures taken to:

(a)Ensure respect for the rights of children with disabilities as set out in relevant legislative acts, including the Persons with Disability Act, the Education Act and the Children’s Act, and to ensure that the views of children with disabilities can be expressed and are given due weight in all matters affecting them;

(b)Protect children with disabilities, including autistic children, children with psychosocial disabilities and children with intellectual disabilities, from exclusion, violence, abuse and corporal punishment, both at home and at school, and from neglect by teachers, peers and family members, including action to prevent the use of derogatory language about them when travelling on public transport;

(c)Provide parents and families with information services and other social and financial support to take care of their children with disabilities, and promote the participation of children with disabilities within the family and community.

Awareness-raising (art. 8)

5.Please provide detailed information, including time frames and allocated budgets, on awareness-raising programmes and campaigns and other measures that are planned and implemented with the involvement of persons with disabilities through their representative organizations, include the media and the public, and are aimed at addressing stigmatization and negative societal perceptions of persons with disabilities, including persons with albinism.

Accessibility (art. 9)

6.Please describe:

(a)Measures in place to enforce the Building Code and national accessibility standards, existing sanctions for failure to comply with them and resources allocated to ensure accessibility with respect to the physical environment, in particular, those aimed at facilitating the implementation of section 6 of the Persons with Disability Act by both public and private institutions;

(b)Measures to ensure that persons with disabilities through their representative organizations are actively involved in the implementation and monitoring of the accessibility standards and the Building Code;

(c)Steps taken to ensure accessible transportation, information and communication, and other services provided to the public;

(d)Measures taken to ensure that the various forms of information and communications technology and services are fully accessible to persons with disabilities.

Right to life (art. 10)

7.Please provide updated information on:

(a)Efforts to bring the Persons with Disability Act fully into line with article 10 of the Convention.

(b)Measures, including awareness-raising campaigns, taken since the submission of the State party report to prevent harmful cultural practices, such as infanticide and ritual killings, that negatively impact the right to life of persons with disabilities.

Situations of risk and humanitarian emergencies (art. 11)

8.Please indicate what concrete steps the National Disaster Management Organization is taking to:

(a)Ensure that the rights and requirements of persons with disabilities are taken into account in current and future disaster management legislations, policies and plans;

(b)Ensure that information on disaster risks and related warnings are accessible to all persons with disabilities regardless of the type of impairment;

(c)Involve persons with disabilities through their representative organizations, in the planning and implementation of plans for disaster and emergency response, rehabilitation and recovery.

9.Please provide information on measures taken to establish a targeted, sustainable humanitarian emergency framework to ensure the protection of persons with disabilities on an equal basis with others, and specifically in the context of the public health emergency resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic. In particular, please advise on measures taken to provide persons with disabilities with accessible information concerning the scope of the pandemic and prevention of the spreading of the virus; ensure continuous access to support and mainstream community services, including in-home care and personal assistance; provide equal access to health care, including life-saving measures; and ensure that social benefits are guaranteed at all times. Please also inform the Committee on the mechanisms in place to ensure that persons with disabilities through their representative organizations are closely consulted on, and actively involved in, the design and application of such measures, as well as in the development of measures guiding the recovery from the pandemic.

Equal recognition before the law (art. 12)

10.Please provide detailed information on:

(a)Legal measures adopted to ensure that persons with disabilities can exercise their full legal capacity on an equal basis with others, and to repeal legislation that directly or indirectly restricts the full legal capacity of persons with disabilities on the basis of disability;

(b)Measures taken to amend the Persons with Disability Act to include provisions on equal recognition for persons with disabilities before the law;

(c)Measures taken to ensure supported decision-making in place of substituted decision-making for persons with disabilities who need this service;

(d)Steps taken to revise and/or review legal and other policy measures that deny legal capacity to persons with disabilities, in particular persons with psychosocial disabilities and persons with intellectual disabilities, to enter into contracts, open bank accounts and exercise rights related to family life.

Access to justice (art. 13)

11.Please describe the measures taken to:

(a)Make appropriate adjustments in the justice delivery system, in particular with regard to procedural adjustments and the provision of gender- and age-appropriate accommodation for persons with disabilities in all legal proceedings;

(b)Equip police stations, courts and prisons with accessible forms of communication and make their physical structures and services accessible to persons with disabilities;

(c)Provide training to justice system personnel on the rights of persons with disabilities, the provisions of the Convention and its implementation in national legislation;

(d)Ensure adequate resources for the legal aid scheme to provide legal services to persons with disabilities throughout legal processes.

Liberty and security of the person (art. 14)

12.Please provide information on:

(a)Measures taken to ensure liberty and security of persons with disabilities and to abolish, under all circumstances, any involuntary placement of persons with disabilities in the justice system or in mental health facilities on the grounds of their impairment;

(b)Steps taken to prohibit non-consensual treatments, such as forced medication and confinement, in particular for persons with psychosocial disabilities;

(c)Measures in place to prevent the incarceration of persons with disabilities in rural communities on the basis of negative attitudes, myths and superstitions about disability;

(d)Disaggregated data from the past five years on the deprivation of liberty of persons with disabilities.

Freedom from torture or cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment(art. 15)

13.Please provide information on steps taken to:

(a)End all forms of torture or cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment, including resulting from cultural and religious beliefs that hold that some persons with disabilities, such as persons with albinism, are a curse or a bad omen and that they should be either banished from the community or threatened with death;

(b)Address prayer and healing camps, which result in the degrading and cruel treatment of persons with disabilities under the pretext of healing;

(c)End torture and ill-treatment in health facilities, psychiatric hospitals and other health facilities and residential institutions, and prevent cruel or inhumane and degrading treatment or punishment faced by persons with psychosocial disabilities when they are admitted to such facilities, as well as in domestic settings;

(d)Eradicate, prevent and punish practices, such as those faced by children with disabilities and albinism, who are called “spirit children”, that result in their mutilation or death;

(e)Establish a national mechanism for the prevention of torture, as stipulated under article 3 of the Optional Protocol to the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, or an alternative mechanism to prevent torture or cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.

14.Please submit statistics for the past five years, disaggregated by type of impairment, sex, age and geographical location, on the number of cases relating to torture or cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment of persons with disabilities. Please also provide information on measures taken to investigate and prosecute cases, provide redress for victims and impose sanctions on perpetrators.

Freedom from exploitation, violence and abuse (art. 16)

15.Please provide information on:

(a)Concrete measures taken to prevent, prohibit and prosecute all forms of corporal punishment, exploitation, violence and abuse, including domestic violence, sexual violence, violence in schools, and neglect of persons with disabilities, in particular of women and girls with disabilities, persons with albinism and persons with disabilities living in street situations, and to ensure access to reporting mechanisms, health care and psychological support, rehabilitation, justice, compensation and social reintegration services;

(b)Measures to ensure accessibility, including regarding information and communication, of crisis centres and shelters for persons with disabilities who are victims of violence, in particular victims of gender-based and sexual violence and abuse, as well as on measures to ensure the funding and availability of shelters throughout the State party;

(c)Statistical data on cases of exploitation, violence and abuse, including sexual abuse, against persons with disabilities, disaggregated by gender, age, sexual orientation and geographical location.

Protecting the integrity of the person (art. 17)

16.Please provide information on measures taken to protect the integrity of persons with disabilities, in particular on measures protecting women and girls with disabilities from being forced to undertake involuntary family planning medication or to undergo sterilization procedures or forced abortions.

Liberty of movement and nationality (art. 18)

17.Please provide information on:

(a)The current status of the national identification system and how the specific requirements of persons with disabilities have been, or are to be, integrated;

(b)Measures taken to ensure free birth registration and birth certificate issuance for all children with disabilities at birth;

(c)Measures in place to pay specific attention to issues regarding the liberty, nationality and freedom of movement of persons with disabilities.

Living independently and being included in the community (art. 19)

18.Please indicate the measures in place to:

(a)Adopt a national framework for the closure of institutions and residential care facilities where persons with disabilities still reside and to establish community-based support services, as well as measures taken to combat isolation, marginalization, exclusion and segregation of persons with disabilities;

(b)Ensure the provision of community-based services, including referral systems within the community;

(c)Ensure usage of accessible forms of communication, including Braille, sign language and Easy Read, in the community to enable the deaf and persons with other disabilities to access services and information necessary to enable them to live independently in the community;

(d)Provide health and other necessary services to persons with disabilities within the facilities in the community;

(e)Scale up the economic and social standard of living for persons with disabilities to enable them to live independently in the community.

Personal mobility (art. 20)

19.Please provide information on:

(a)Incentives provided to manufacturers to make mobility aids, devices and assistive technologies available at affordable prices, and indicate the outcomes of those incentives;

(b)Steps taken to provide training in mobility skills to persons with disabilities and to specialist staff working with persons with disabilities;

(c)Efforts made to provide mobility aids to persons with disabilities outside the education system;

(d)Efforts to develop a policy or legislation to regulate the acquisition and usage of mobility aids and to ensure the availability and affordability of assistive devices and technology in the local market, particularly in the rural areas.

Freedom of expression and opinion, and access to information (art. 21)

20.Please provide updated information on:

(a)Measures taken to ensure that persons with disabilities at all levels of education and in community life have effective access to information, including on the Internet, in accessible formats and technologies;

(b)The current status of the guidelines on the use of appropriate and accessible forms of communication, including different languages;

(c)The current status of the elaboration by the National Council on Persons with Disability and the National Communications Authority of minimum targets for subtitling, signing and audio description on television channels to ensure that electronic communications are accessible to persons with disabilities;

(d)Plans to recognize sign language as an official language of the State party and to train more sign language interpreters, and whether sign language interpretation is available at all State functions and on all television stations;

(e)Measures taken to ensure adaptive procurement and investment in assistive technologies.

Respect for privacy (art. 22)

21.Please indicate what measures are being taken to ensure that the privacy of all persons with disabilities is respected and, in particular, that medical and health-related information about them is not made public without their consent.

Respect for home and the family (art. 23)

22.Please provide information on:

(a)Efforts to address cultural and religious beliefs that negatively impact the rights of persons with disabilities to respect for home and the family;

(b)Measures taken to ensure comprehensive, affordable and accessible sexual and reproductive health education and services to families of persons with disabilities, in particular women with disabilities;

(c)Measures taken to prevent separating children from their family because of their and/or their parents’ disability.

Education (art. 24)

23.Please provide information on:

(a)Measures taken to ensure quality inclusive education for persons with disabilities, reasonable accommodation and availability of sign language and educational material in Braille and in the Easy Read format, and a sufficient number of teachers qualified in sign language and/or Braille;

(b)Steps taken to ensure the training of all teachers in the mainstream education system on teaching children with disabilities and to include inclusive education as an integral part of the core teacher training curricula to ensure that the values and principles of inclusive education are infused at the onset of teacher training and teaching careers;

(c)Measures taken in regard to the transition from segregated special education to inclusive education and the deinstitutionalization of children with disabilities in educational settings;

(d)Efforts made to ensure the provision of adequate resources, assistive equipment and services to enable learners with disabilities to be included in the mainstream education system;

(e)The operationalization of the inclusive education policy, which is reported to be hindered by inadequate funding, lack of trained personnel on inclusive approaches, materials and inaccessible physical infrastructure;

(f)Measures in place to ensure the learning of science and mathematics by students with visual impairments at the secondary level of education.

Health (art. 25)

24.Please provide information on:

(a)Measures taken to improve accessibility for persons with disabilities to health infrastructure, facilities, information and services, in particular in rural areas;

(b)Services provided to persons with disabilities under the national health insurance scheme, in particular the provision of disability-related health care and services, including sexual and reproductive health services to women and girls with disabilities;

(c)Measures taken to raise awareness of the human rights, dignity, autonomy and requirements of persons with disabilities through the training and sensitization of health personnel, and the involvement of persons with disabilities through their representative organizations in those training initiatives.

Habilitation and rehabilitation (art. 26)

25.Please provide information on measures taken to:

(a)Expand the community-based rehabilitation programme to cover all districts in the State party;

(b)Provide persons with disabilities with rehabilitation and habilitation services based on individual requirements and preferences of persons with disabilities, in order to reflect the holistic nature of individual rehabilitation, and ensure accessibility in the community.

Work and employment (art. 27)

26.Please provide information on:

(a)Measures taken to promote the employment of qualified persons with disabilities in all sectors of the economy, including awareness-raising activities and the provision of incentives to businesses, other than those owned by persons with disabilities, for the hiring of persons with disabilities;

(b)Plans for the establishment of the employment centre for persons with disabilities, as provided for under the Persons with Disability Act;

(c)The status of employment of persons with disabilities in the public sector, and gender-disaggregated statistics;

(d)Measures in place to prevent discrimination against persons with disabilities in all matters concerning all forms of employment, in particular regarding recruitment processes, salary and benefits, and the provision of reasonable accommodation.

Adequate standard of living and social protection (art. 28)

27.Please provide information on:

(a)Measures taken to ensure an adequate standard of living and the social protection of persons with disabilities, including on measures to ensure support with disability-related requirements;

(b)The number of persons with disabilities who have benefited from the three per cent common fund for persons with disabilities of the Disability Fund and the Livelihood Empowerment against Poverty programme;

(c)Efforts to expand national social protection to benefit all persons with disabilities who do not have any other means of income, including persons with psychosocial disabilities and persons with intellectual disabilities;

(d)The current status of the draft social protection policy and whether persons with disabilities through their representative organizations have been involved in its elaboration.

Participation in political and public life (art. 29)

28.Please provide information on:

(a)Steps taken to ensure the right of persons with psychosocial disabilities and persons with intellectual disabilities to vote and participate fully in political and public life;

(b)Measures taken to strengthen the implementation of section 1 of the Persons with Disability Act, which guarantees the rights of persons with disabilities to participate in political, social and economic activities.

Participation in cultural life, recreation, leisure and sport (art. 30)

29.Please provide information on:

(a)Measures taken to implement the Marrakesh Treaty to Facilitate Access to Published Works for Persons Who Are Blind, Visually Impaired or Otherwise Print Disabled;

(b)Measures taken by the Ministry of Education and Sports, the National Commission for Culture and district assemblies to ensure that persons with disabilities have access to sports and cultural events and facilities through the provision of adequate and accessible facilities, programmes and incentives;

(c)Measures in place to eliminate the cultural barriers and negative stereotypes affecting persons with disabilities, in particular persons with albinism, who are discriminated against and not allowed to attend traditional cultural events, and to participate in community activities.

C.Specific obligations (arts. 31–33)

Statistics and data collection (art. 31)

30.Please provide detailed information on:

(a)Studies and research on disability issues carried out under section 42 (2) (h) of the Persons with Disability Act;

(b)Data collected under the national disability policy and whether those data are accessible to the public;

(c)The mechanisms in place to ensure the accuracy of the disaggregated data on persons with disabilities being collected by the National Council on Persons with Disability, the use of data in the implementation of the Convention and the identification of barriers faced by persons with disabilities in exercising their rights;

(d)The involvement of persons with disabilities through their representative organizations in data collection and analysis in respect to data on persons with disabilities.

International cooperation (art. 32)

31.Please provide information on:

(a)Efforts to involve organizations of persons with disabilities in partnership with relevant international and regional organizations, such as the United Nations and the African Union;

(b)Steps taken to ensure that persons with disabilities through their representative organizations participate in negotiations with international development partners in developing disability-inclusive programmes.

National implementation and monitoring (art. 33)

32.Please provide information on:

(a)Whether the State party designated one or more focal points within the government for matters relating to the implementation of the Convention, and whether it established or designated a coordination mechanism within the government to facilitate related action in different sectors and at different levels;

(b)The role of the Commission on Human Rights and Administrative Justice and the National Council on Persons with Disability in the promotion, protection and monitoring of the implementation of the Convention;

(c)Measures taken to establish an independent monitoring mechanism that is allocated resources from the budget and compatible with the principles relating to the status of national institutions for the promotion and protection of human rights (the Paris Principles) for monitoring and reporting on the implementation of the Convention.