Issues related to health, education, transportation, and access to welfare are among a suite of matters expected to be considered in legislation to Improve the Lives of Persons with Disabilities (PWDs).
This follows recommendations made by members of the disabled community and other stakeholders as they participated in a meeting of the Law Reform Commission and the National Advisory Committee for Improving the Lives of Persons with Disabilities at the Lloyd Erskine Sandiford Centre recently.
Minister of People Empowerment and Elder Affairs, Kirk Humphrey, said the legislation was expected to address a number of challenges raised during the consultation in order to improve the lives of persons with disabilities.
“In every regard, we have unfortunately not been able to deliver on the promise, but this legislation will help us to be able to do that,” he said.
However, the Minister made it clear that as the new legislation was built out, there would be a need to build out the physical architecture and create better facilities for persons.
In the area of education, the Minister said there was “tremendous distance” to be covered, while the area of transportation continued to raise concerns.
Mr. Humphrey said while the number of buses on the road had increased, persons with disabilities complained that if they got a disabled friendly bus to a location, it was “almost impossible” to get a similar bus to return home.
“These are the things that we have to be able to fix. It is not right to pat yourself on the shoulder when the other persons who depend on the service are feeling it in other parts of their anatomy. Therefore, we have to be able to correct all of those things,” he said.
Chair of the Committee, Edmund Hinkson, described the consultation as a “significant day” in the lives of persons with disabilities in Barbados.
He noted that while Barbados was behind its sister countries of Jamaica, Guyana, Bahamas, Antigua and Haiti, it was in a position to benefit from precedent pieces of legislation to act as a guide.
“This is an all of society approach to deal with a defect in our legislative system to help people with disabilities, the majority of whom make up the most vulnerable in this society in terms of being on or below the poverty line,” Mr. Hinkson said.
Meanwhile, Chair of the Law Reform Commission, Sir David Simmons, noted that the draft document still had to go to the Chief Parliamentary Counsel for reformatting and adapting to the standards and practices.
However, he noted that the Committee’s work over the last six months substantially reduced the time for the finalisation of the document.
The draft legislation was drafted by Consultant, Dr. Jason Haynes, who is presently an Associate Professor of Law at the University of Birmingham.