Discrimination and the Law in Uganda

The blogs What is Stigma? Stigma and Disability: Stereotypes, Reducing the Stigma of HIV/AIDS in Uganda, What is prejudice? What is Ableism? South African study of family responses to Ableism Part 1 of 2 and South African study of family responses to Ableism Part 2 of 2 all point to discrimination being the outcome of stigma, stereotyping and prejudice. The blog, What is prejudice? further suggests that discrimination is a common link between stigma and prejudice, and that research should focus more on discrimination. This blog first asks: What is discrimination? 

The term discrimination came into the English language in the 17th century. It is derived from the Latin discrimire which means "to separate, to distinguish, to make a distinction". Discrimination is treatment or consideration that makes a distinction for or against a person or an object based on the group they are thought to come from rather than on individual merit. Wikipedia continues:

Moral philosophers have defined discrimination as disadvantageous treatment or consideration. This is a comparative definition. An individual need not be actually harmed in order to be discriminated against. They just need to be treated worse than others for some arbitrary reason.
Based on realistic-conflict theory and social-identity theory, Rubin and Hewstone have highlighted a distinction among three types of discrimination:

1. Realistic competition is driven by self-interest and is aimed at obtaining material resources (e.g., food, territory, customers) for the in-group (e.g., favouring an in-group in order to obtain more resources for its members, including the self).
2. Social competition is driven by the need for self-esteem and is aimed at achieving a positive social status for the in-group relative to comparable out-groups (e.g., favouring an in-group in order to make it better than an out-group).
3. Consensual discrimination is driven by the need for accuracy and reflects stable and legitimate intergroup status hierarchies (e.g., favouring a high-status in-group because it is high status).

The United Nations stance on discrimination includes the statement: "Discriminatory behaviors take many forms, but they all involve some form of exclusion or rejection."International bodies United Nations Human Rights Council work towards helping ending discrimination around the world.

The United Nations has several treaties in place to protect people from discrimination, some of the most important are:

• The Universal Declaration of Human Rights is the foundation document for human rights. 
• The International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (ICERD). 
• The Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW). 
• The Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD), see Do you know your rights?

In summary, prejudice, stigma and stereotypes operate in the following way:

• Prejudice is the attitude, for instance, that disabled people are inferior to normal people. 
• Stigma is, for instance, the idea that no one wants wants to be disabled because it is the end of your life. 
• A stereotype is, for instance, the idea that a disabled person with no legs could never do a normal job because they are unable to work.

In contrast discrimination is acting on prejudice, stigma or a stereotype. If you do not act on you prejudice, stigma or stereotype that is not discrimination. How discrimination can be measured will be discussed in the next post. For now we will continue the discussion of discrimination in Ugandan law. 

The CRPD is important, because it protects people from discrimination. The overarching idea of the CRPD is that regardless of disability all people are equal. Rights are protected on the basis of equality.

Boaz Muhumuza

In the 2013 article Blinded by Discrimination: Why people with disabilities are not problems to be solved Boaz Muhumuza, a trained lawyer, discusses the discrimination he has encountered in his life:

Growing up in Uganda, I had to travel over 600 kilometres from my home to find a school for the blind. But I was lucky. Most children in East Africa – indeed across the continent – who are blind, deaf or have an intellectual disability never receive a proper education. People with psychosocial disabilities are often put into treatment centres that are as good as prisons.
But beyond institutional barriers, people with disabilities also struggle against attitudes. People often assume that we cannot make our own decisions, like where and with whom we want to live. We are denied the freedom to make wrong or right choices. People don’t understand that an impairment – like being unable to see – does not affect my other faculties. The fact that I don’t see doesn’t mean that I don’t think. The fact that a person has a mental health problem doesn’t mean that he or she doesn’t have desires, that they are unable to like certain things and hate others.
And my disability – rather than being a limitation – actually became the driving force of my success. Sceptics and outright opposition to my educations drove me to overcome all the obstacles that stand in the way of a person with a visual impairment enjoying a decent education in an under-developed country. Questions like ‘Can he study?’ and ‘Will he ever acquire gainful employment’ merely increased my determination to beat the odds and as a result I was the best student at every level, including Law school where I came top of a class of 303 fully-sighted students.
The human rights abuses I suffered and saw other people with disabilities suffering convinced me to become a human rights lawyer so that I could challenge these violations and promote the rights of people with disabilities. I practiced law with the Legal Action for Persons with Disabilities Uganda (LAPD), a non-governmental organisation that provides free legal aid services to people with disabilities in Uganda and helps to counter the numerous challenges they face in accessing justice – from the physical inaccessibility of court structures to the fact that a person with a mental health challenge cannot testify in court. I also worked with several NGOs advocating for rights of people with disabilities in Uganda.
But then I heard about the new disability programme at the Open Society Initiative for Eastern Africa (OSIEA) and I knew it was the perfect place for me – a place where I could play a central role in shaping government and community programmes, policies and laws towards people with disabilities across the region.
And fortunately, there is now real hope for a change in how people view disability rights in Africa thanks to the United Nations Convention on Rights of Persons with Disabilities. The convention is an international legal instrument that enshrines the rights of persons with disabilities. It was enacted in 2006, and almost every country in East Africa has signed and ratified the convention. By virtue of ratification, these countries are now legally bound to ensure that the rights contained in the convention are put into practice.
But even though so many countries in the region ratified the convention, its details are not well understood – even for those of us who are working on them. We still struggle to figure out what the rights mean in practice. What does it mean for a person with disabilities to have choice? What does it mean for you to say that a person with a mental health challenge has a right to vote?
Understanding the convention in the African context is even more complex. What does it mean if you're fighting for inclusion of people with disabilities in the community when there are no institutions? In Europe or America the answer is easier. There people with disabilities are put into institutions, and inclusion has a clear meaning. But in Africa – where there are fewer institutions – discrimination happens most often in the community in which the person lives. We need experts who can flesh out the policy in a local context.
This will mean shifting the framework for how people view disabilities. Previously, disability was seen in one of two ways – either as a medical problem or a condition that evoked sympathy or pity. People have often asked me, “Have you tried to go to a hospital for your eyes to be treated?” They look at my lack of sight as a problem that should be solved. Or they see me only as someone to be pitied. This approach leads to placing people in institutions. Because the blind need services, people think the solution is to put all blind people into one building.
The human rights framework is meant to shift the problem from the person to the environment. The problem is not that I cannot see, but that my environment is limiting.
Let’s take an example. If you have an elevator in your building and I’m using a wheelchair, I will come with my wheelchair, enter the elevator and arrive at the seventh floor. If you have no elevator you will have disabled me. I’ll come with my wheelchair, but I will be unable to reach my intended floor. With an elevator, we are all able to get to the same place. If the environment is improved then the person who is blind or paralyzed or deaf can perform as well as the others. That’s where the human rights approach comes in.
People often wonder how these environmental changes can be made when resources are scarce, but much of what we are requesting is not big. Reasonable accommodation allows for changes that are neither too expensive nor too difficult for someone to implement. After all, why should someone be able to construct an 8-story building and yet say that they don’t have resources for an elevator?
Obviously, the question of resource scarcity is a challenge. But governments must realise that people with disabilities constitute 10 percent of the world’s population, and many of the changes we need are quite small and don’t cost too much money. Even changing attitudes – for example, having doctors address me and not the person I came with – would go a long way.
What we really need is awareness and education, so that people can understand disability. We need laws and policies to create an environment that is positive to persons with disabilities, and we need to respect the choices, capacity and abilities of people with disabilities.

In theory persons with disabilities (PWDs) should be protected from discrimination by the various laws that Uganda has implemented to protect the rights of PWDs. In reality the Employment Act 2006, the Disability Act 2006 and other laws do not offer the protection they were designed to give. This 2014 report Access to Employment for Personswith Disabilities in Uganda summarizes the state of disability laws in Uganda. The report concludes:

By enacting progressive disability laws, Uganda took a significant leap towards promoting equality of opportunity and encouraging full participation of PWDs in economic and social activities. The Disabilities Act has transformed the face of disability law in Uganda and empowered PWDs with strong legal safeguards. However, few cases ever make it to the courtroom and in most cases the employers avoid such responsibility by not offering PWDs contracts or not hiring them at all. The government should set aside funds to assist marginalised groups to bring cases to court and special committees should be set up to investigate any allegations of discrimination on grounds of disability. Unless legal enforcement is improved and penalties for breach of legal provisions are put in place and enforced, then little is likely to change.
Furthermore, in implementing the provisions of the CRPD, the government missed a critical step, to allocate necessary resources and to put in place institutional frameworks to implement disability policies. Institutional frameworks such as vocational training centers lack adequate funding and in most cases train skills which are largely irrelevant to the current jobs market. Despite that, some PWDs have graduated from these centers and managed to put their skills into practice. However, the vast majority of graduates have so far failed to find meaningful work. Thus, it is recommended that the government assists those who have gained relevant skills by connecting them to employers or offering them financial aid to setup businesses or any trade in which they can apply their skills.
To address the significant gaps in disability policy, Uganda needs immediate and deliberate political action, strong advocacy by the disability community and civil society, above all, support from academics. In regards to the latter, there is a dearth of research literature on disability in Uganda. The academic community needs to wake up and realise that unless there is research literature that highlights the challenges faced by PWDs in areas such as employment, education and health, they would be failing PWDs who are looking at them for support and direction. Advocacy also needs to improve since poor legal enforcement continues to cast a shadow of doubt over most of the progressive government policies. All in all, these shortfalls indicate that the protection of PWDs in employment is in a progressive but still dire state. 

In summary, discrimination happens when a prejudice, stigma or stereotype are acted upon. When a person is discriminated against their rights are infringed. The United Nations CRPD was signed by the government of Uganda to protect the basic rights of PWDs in Uganda. The United Nations has many treaties that form the basis of laws in Uganda that are designed to protect all the people of Uganda. However, the laws relating to discrimination against PWDs are failing in Uganda. Urgent research, political action and advocacy need to be implemented to ensure the PWDs of Uganda are protected.