'Involve disabled people in decision making'

Harare - People with disabilities often get sidelined in decision making and suffer discrimination within their families and communities that there live in, it has emerged.

This came to light at Zimbabwe Parent for Handicapped Children Association (ZPHCA) meeting held in Domboshava over the weekend with the chiefs calling for equal participation between the abled and disabled people in all decision making levels.

Domboshava Chief Mungate said disabled people are not given opportunities to have a say in decision making within family setups which inflicts untold suffering to them.

"We are all the same and being physically challenged does not mean there are not part of society they need to be involved in every decision making," said the chief.

The chief said most of disabled people were taken for a ride by able bodied who use them as street vendor for their personal gain.

Chief Mungate said most of them are excluded in the issues of inheritance with no law protecting them from property grabbers.

"The issue of inheritance has become a huge problem amongst disabled people, parents should include their disabled children in wills because in most cases physically challenged people do not get anything from their parents property whilst there are entitled to get something people."

ZPHCA coordinator Theresa Makwara said there was need for collective efforts from family to government level to make sure disabled people get equal opportunities and play an equal role in society.

Makwara said poverty was the worst element haunting physically challenged people as their parents cannot afford to send them to school to acquire basic life skills.

"Most disadvantaged people rarely get the opportunity to go to school and most people take advantage of that to use them but would like the government to make concerted efforts in recognizing the plight of these children.

Although government has made a move to have two members from the disability community in the Senate, more still needs to be done to ensure full recognition of the disabled in the country.

Zimbabwe has about  two million people living with disabilities.