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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:

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 The outdated Mental Disorders Act perpetuates discrimination, human rights violations, and abuses against persons with mental disabilities.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
Annual Reports and NewslettersBusiness and Human RightsChildren's RightsCriminal JusticeDisability RightsFreedom of Expression, Assembly and AssociationHealth RightsInternational Criminal JusticeRefugee and Migrant RightsRule of LawSADCSexual and Reproductive Health RightsSOGIE RightsWomen’s Land and Property Rights

2015-2017 BIENNIAL REPORT

SALC envisions a region in which domestic and regional courts are strong, independent, and fully functional and in which they uphold and enforce the rule of law and human rights. To that end, SALC works with domestic lawyers in each jurisdiction, who are litigating public interest cases involving human rights…
Kaajal Ramjathan-Keogh
6 Oct 2017