Skip to main content

Disability Rights

SALC’s Disability Rights work is integrated within its other programmatic areas and focuses on the following objectives:

  • To encourage the development and reform of laws and policies in line with the requirements of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities.
  • To raise awareness of ongoing discrimination of persons with disabilities in the criminal justice system, with a focus on persons with mental disabilities and persons with albinism.
  • To ensure accountability for discrimination of persons with disabilities in healthcare services, including through complaints mechanisms.
  • To ensure access to education for children with disabilities.
  • To support the work towards petty offences and provide evidence to courts on how these offences impact on persons with disabilities.

On-going cases:

Completed cases:

Publications:

Submissions

Advocacy:

Disability RightsHealth RightsOngoing casesZambia

Zambia: Challenging denial of legal capacity for persons with intellectual and psychosocial disabilities

SALC is supporting a petition by a person with psychosocial disabilities and the Disability Rights Watch (DRW) to repeal Section 4 of the Mental Health Act of 2019 in Katontoka  and Another v the Attorney General. The Petitioners argue that the provision unconstitutionally infringes on the rights to dignity, liberty, freedom of…
Staff Writer
26 Feb 2021
Criminal JusticeDisability RightsMalawiSex Worker RightsSOGIE RightsSubmissions

Joint Stakeholder Submission to the UNHRC for the LOIPR to be considered in relation to Malawi

The Malawi Centre for Human Rights Education, Advice and Assistance (CHREAA), the Southern Africa Litigation Centre (SALC), Reprieve and Irish Rule of Law International (IRLI) submit information to the Human Rights Committee (HRC) for the drafting of the list of issues prior to reporting (LOIPR) ahead of the upcoming review…
Amanda Shivamba
25 Jan 2021
Disability RightsHealth RightsNewsZambia

NEWS RELEASE: STATEMENT IN SOLIDARITY WITH ZAMBIAN ACTIVISTS CALLING FOR AMENDMENT OF THE MENTAL HEALTH BILL

8 March 2019 Mental health law reform in Zambia is desperately overdue. The outdated Mental Disorders Act perpetuates discrimination, human rights violations, and abuses against persons with mental disabilities. It denies mental health care users the rights to live with dignity, make decisions about their care, and access community-based services.…
Annabel Raw
8 Mar 2019
Disability RightsHealth RightsNewsZambia

It’s World Mental Health Day: Why aren’t we reforming abusive and discriminatory laws?

By: Annabel Raw In Zambia, as in many countries in the southern Africa region, archaic, colonially-inherited laws are applied to oppress, isolate and abuse persons with psychosocial disabilities and mental health users. Reform is urgently needed. IMAGE: Mental Health Reform Stakeholder Meeting Participants in Lusaka, Zambia, May 2018 Internationally, 10…
Annabel Raw
10 Oct 2018
Children's RightsDisability RightsHealth RightsNewsSADC

statement: Shining a light on the urgency of implementing the Regional Action Plan on Albinism in Africa

On 13 June, every year the world commemorates the International Albinism Awareness Day. This year the International Albinism Awareness day is commemorated under the theme ‘shining our light to the world’, providing an opportunity to reflect on progress and challenges facing persons with albinism. In 2018 many positive steps were…
Staff Writer
13 Jun 2018