Disability in Ghana

Disability in Ghana has a massive amount of stigma, children or people who are born disabled or deformed are assumed to be possessed by evil spirits.^[1][2]

Discrimination

Adults with mental illness may be put in prayer camps, in 2013 legislation prohibited the killing of newborn babies with disabilities, so called "spirit children".^{[3][4][5][6][7][8][9]}

Policy and legislation

Although Ghana signed the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities in March 2007, the government took until August 2012 to ratify it.^[10]

An estimated five million Ghanaians have disabilities, of which 2.8 million have a mental disability, however only one percent of the country's health budget is earmarked for mental health services.^[10]

Sport

Ghana has sent a team to every Summer Paralympic Games since 2004, they have not won any medals yet.^[11]

References

1. "Tied to trees, given electric shocks and drowned in the river at birth: Is Ghana the worst country in the world to be disabled?". Daily Mail. Retrieved 2015-07-28.
2. "Ghana News - The Misrepresentation of Disability - Graphic Online". Graphic.com.gh. 2016-01-07. Retrieved 2016-03-08.
3. "Ghanaians ban 'spirit child' killing". BBC. Retrieved 2015-07-28.
4. "The country where disabled people are beaten and chained". BBC. Retrieved 2015-07-28.
5. "Spirit children of Ghana". Guardian. Retrieved 2015-05-29.
6. "Ghana Bans Killing of Children". Pacific. Retrieved 2015-05-29.
7. "Paul Apowida: From Ghanaian 'spirit boy' to UK soldier". BBC. Retrieved 2015-07-28.
8. "Telegraph Christmas Appeal: saving the cursed children of Ghana". The Daily Telegraph. Retrieved 2015-07-28.
9. Vivian E D Ampadu. "The Depiction of Mental Illness in Nigerian and Ghanaian movies: A negative or positive impact on mental health awareness in Ghana?" (PDF). Disability-studies.leeds.ac.uk. Retrieved 2016-09-17.
10. "Ghana: Disability Rights Convention Ratified". Human Rights Watch. Retrieved 2015-07-28.
11. "Paralympic Results & Historical Records". Paralympic.org. Retrieved 2015-07-28.