Section 5: The Main Conclusions and Recommendations of the Study

Main conclusions

Considering the context of Cameroon, the main conclusions of this study come from not only what respondents said, but from the underlining issues related to problems faced by persons with disability brought out from our experience of work at the National Commission on Human Rights and Freedoms of Cameroon. This approach has been adopted to reflect the practical background for necessary actions to be undertaken.

Based on the material used for the analysis of the data retrieved from the field work and from our personal experience, the following conclusions were made relating to barriers experienced, abuse and violence, discriminatory attitudes, limited accesses, positive life experiences, access to human rights principles (dignity, autonomy, equality and inclusion), respect for differences, reactions to abuse and/or discrimination and the systematic causes of discrimination.

These have been enumerated as follows:

• The government is the only body capable of providing effective and sustainable solutions to the problems faced by persons with disabilities in Cameroon;
• Almost all the existing rehabilitation centres were put in place by secular and private initiatives; meanwhile government structures are almost inexistent and invisible;
• The amount the government allocates to institutions in charge of rehabilitation in the form of subvention is insignificant and irregular;
• There exist no specialised training institutions for persons with disabilities;
• There is inadequate number of teachers in charge of training persons with disabilities and the existing percent of such teachers rather received in-service training;
• Some administrative and training personnel have a poor interpretation of the law of 1983 and its 1990 decree of application relative to the rights of persons with disability; especially concerning the free access to education of children with disabilities or of parents with disabilities;
• The 1983 law and its 1990 decree of application relative to the protection and defence of persons with disabilities in Cameroon is not coercive;
• The number of staff from the public service delegated to institutions in charge of persons with disabilities is insignificant;
• The situation of both skilled and unskilled persons with disabilities with respect to the job market is precarious;
• Persons with disabilities are less represented in many public competitive exams;
• Most parents are often depressed and distraught concerning the disabilities of their children;
• There is the lack of specific data on the number of persons with disabilities in Cameroon;
• The social policy concerning the protection and promotion of the rights of persons with disabilities is inappropriate;
• The National Pilot Committee on persons with disabilities is precarious;
• The percentage of persons with disabilities represented in important state bodies( the National Assembly, Ministries, Public enterprises etc) is insignificant;
• There is no National Solidarity Fund to financially assist micro projects and ensure the financial independence of persons with disabilities;
• Persons with disabilities are still discriminated against, in certain national texts especially those related to the entrance into the Higher Teachers Training Institute, and other institutions.

Based on the conclusions from the analysis of the collected data, and considering the current situation in the international scene concerning the protection and promotion of the rights of persons with disabilities, it should be mentioned here that Cameroon has not yet signed nor ratified the United Nations Convention on the rights of persons with disabilities that was opened for signature in March 2007, at the end of the data collection for this study.

Main recommendations

In the face of all the barriers and discrimination described in this study, the interviewees raised a number of valuable suggestions to improve the situation of persons with disabilities in their country. A summary of this is presented in table 20 below:

1. Raise awareness

Raising awareness was the most significant recommendation made by the interviewees. More than 54.2 % of the interviewees made the following remarks:

• The State should better educate the public on issues related to disabilities as well as on how to behave towards such persons;
• The State should organise conferences on subjects related to the rights of persons with disabilities such as: discrimination, exclusion, protection against abuse, education and health, etc;
• The Government as well as organisations in charge of issues related to disabilities should improve the awareness of parents and the entire community on issues concerning disabilities so that they are better able to accept their conditions and interact with them.

An interviewee explained this in the following words:

…Sensitisation of the community should be true and should be told that persons with disabilities are normal people just like you and I and they can do what you do if accorded necessary assistance.

2. Improve respect

Approximately 14% of interviewees demanded more respect and consideration from the government and particularly from the Ministry of Social affairs, which is in charge of persons with disabilities in Cameroon. These interviewees felt that, government should be at the forefront in drawing the attention of the public concerning the respect for persons with disabilities. In order to achieve this, social personnel should be better trained on their responsibilities towards persons with disabilities and on their rights. According to some of the interviewees, society should not be focused on disabilities but on what persons with disabilities are capable of doing.

3. Social supports

As far as social support to persons with disabilities is concerned, the recommendations on this issue were the most numerous, despite the fact that they represented only 13.5 % of the interviewees. They suggested that the government should carry out the following measures:

• Much should be done in the domain of social support to persons with disabilities;
• Strive to improve the living conditions and income of persons with disabilities and their families;
• Assist persons with disabilities with transportation, housing, education,, health and employment facilities;
• Particularly put in place appropriate measures concerning the employment of persons with disabilities;
• Promote physical education and sporting activities for persons with disabilities;
• Create better services for persons with disabilities such as guidance and counselling services for those who suffer from discrimination and abuse;
• Elaborate policies for the benefit of persons with disabilities in the public transport sector to ease their transportation and to create and encourage private transport facilities for groups of persons with disabilities;
• Provide financial assistance to small income enterprises with low profit, thereby ensuring their survival and improving the living conditions of the owners;
• Put an end to architectural barriers;
• The Ministry of Social Affairs should create in collaboration with the Ministry of Health special units to deal with psychological problems faced by persons with disabilities;
• The government should grant special attention to the subvention and transfer of qualified persons with disabilities into specialised accommodation structures;
• Ban the marginalisation of persons with disabilities within our society because they are part and parcel of our different environments but are not different beings;

Government should make Braille writing more accessible to the public, creating specialised institutions for the teaching of Braille and introducing it as a course in the Higher Teachers Training Institute and other higher training institutions. The general aim being to increase the number of schools for the blind, increasing the knowledge on the use of the white cane (for the blind), and the Braille writing in learning institutions, in addition to organising seminars to sensitise and train the public on their importance.

4. Legislation

In the legislative domain, 16.5% of the interviewees made a couple of recommendations as seen below:

• The Cameroon government should continue with its effort to effectively implement the law of 1983 on the rights of persons with disabilities. It should avoid the selective implementation of its terms with respect to this law;
• The law of 1983 as well as its decree of application of 1990 should be amended in order to ease interpretation;
• The government should speed up its plans to revise and render the law of 1983 and its decree of application of 1990. In the same vein, appropriate measures should be taken in order to ensure sanctions and reparations in case of violations of the rights of persons with disabilities;
• The joint letter signed by the Ministries of Social Affairs and Secondary Education on education should be transformed from a simple circular to a legal document;
• Appropriate measures must be put in place to facilitate the access to entrance exams by meritorious persons with disabilities.

5. Economic assistance

As far as economic assistance to persons with disabilities is concerned, 6.3% of the interviewees recommended that, the State takes the following measures:

• The state should create a National Solidarity Trust fund;
• Due to the expensive nature of training materials, the Government should increase the amount of subventions allocated to institutions that accommodate persons with disabilities;

To put in place more adaptable measures to facilitate the movement of persons with disabilities.

6. Political representation

As far as the political representation of persons with disabilities is concerned, one interviewee made the following recommendations:

• That the government should effectively take into account the rights of persons with disabilities in line with the law of 1983. By this law, 10% of state personnel should be taken from amongst the disability group. This was to ensure their greater representation in every sector of the society;
• Measures should be taken to ensure greater representation of persons with disabilities in most national legal institutions such as the parliament, State bodies and institutions.

7. Solidarity between persons with disability

As far as this question is concerned, 18.8% of the interviewees recommended that the government should put in place measures to ensure solidarity amongst persons with disabilities.

In the light of the external recommendations concerning persons with disabilities, it's on the issue of the improvement of the solidarity amongst persons with disability themselves that we crown this section of recommendations in this study that deals with the rights of persons with disabilities in Cameroon.

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