This archive report was first published on 9 May 2020.
On March 11, 2020, the World Health Organisation declared Covid-19 a global pandemic, with millions of people infected and tens of thousands of deaths worldwide. In Kenya, the government established a national emergency response committee to coordinate efforts and enforce containment measures. However, these efforts have largely excluded the needs and voices of persons with disabilities, despite their vulnerabilities.
As a Kenyan with a disability, I and my colleagues are guaranteed equal rights as citizens under the Kenyan Constitution and the United Nations' Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. Yet, we have been excluded from the national Covid-19 response measures, including the National Emergency Response Committee (NERC), which has failed to include an expert on disability issues.
The NERC's daily briefings, held through live television broadcasts, have not been accessible to citizens who are deaf, despite the recognition of Kenyan sign language as an official language under the constitution. This exclusion has had devastating consequences, including the loss of life due to lack of understanding by the police during curfew enforcement.
Furthermore, the social distancing measure has not been implemented with consideration for persons with disabilities. For example, a person with a visual impairment who depends on a sighted guide may struggle to navigate these instructions, and those with mental illnesses may be at risk of losing their lives due to lack of understanding by the police.
It is only through intense lobbying efforts from organisations of persons with disabilities that the NERC has considered stationing a sign language interpreter on-set. However, this is a token inclusion that still falls short of responding to our felt needs.
As a country, we need to set off on a journey to begin treating persons with disabilities as citizens with full rights and not second-class citizens whose rights only come alive as an afterthought. Our reality is such that, as a country, we have failed our most vulnerable during this critical time.
With a significant number of Kenyans being persons with disabilities, totalling 900,000 out of the 42 million Kenyans, it's my hope that this country will one day accord us equal treatment just as other Kenyans. The right time to demonstrate this can only be during a national emergency such as Covid-19.
— Fredrick Ouko is a disability rights advocate and a programme officer in charge of disability rights at the Open Society Initiative for Eastern Africa
