Disabled People South Africa has lashed out at government's plans for International Day of People with Disabilities.
|||Cape Town – Disability movement Disabled People South Africa (DPSA) on Wednesday denounced government’s plans to commemorate International Day of People with Disabilities (IDPD) on Thursday.
“Our dignity cannot be bought with a t-shirt and a plate of pap en wors,” said national chairperson Robert Masambo.
Masambo lashed out at government whose commemorative plans includes a march to the Union Buildings, led by Deputy Minister for Social Development Hendrietta Bogopane-Zulu.
“We have noted that as a tick-box exercise, the government will be hosting marches and rallies tomorrow,” said Masambo.
“We reject the notion of a disability parade that these events will become. You can’t raise disability awareness by a lousy disability contest.”
Masambo made mention of DPSA’s previous grievances with President Jacob Zuma’s administration, a list which began in 2009.
According to Masambo, Zuma had not, since 2009, attended any IDPD commemorations. Added to this, said Masambo, was Zuma’s ill-informed decision to “pigeonhole disability and place it under the Department of Social Development as though [disabled people] are mere objects of pity”.
Masambo said that in 2014, Zuma failed again when he established a Presidential Working Group on Disability, a group that had not yet met. When Disabled People’s Organisations of the Eastern Cape protested this recently, Masambo said their provincial government chose not to meet with them.
Thus, said Masambo, DPSA and like-minded South Africans would abstain from attending the government-led events.
“We will not participate in a state-funded frolic when the fundamentals aimed at restoring our dignity are not in place.”
“It is crystal clear that the South African government does not take people with disabilities seriously, nor is it interested in decisively intervening against the poverty, poor education, and high unemployment that people with disabilities are subjected to,” he added.
African News Agency
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