South Africans should be embarrassed for marginalising people with disabilities in spite of the potential they possess.
Transform SA gathers from new findings of a study by the Centre for Social Development in Africa, titled Poverty and Disability in South Africa, that only 10 percent of disabled people receive social grants. As a result, most of them live below the poverty line.
According to the study, it should not be surprising that people with disabilities are denied the right of access to social grants. Generally, it explains, they are less likely to be educated, and more likely to be jobless, unhealthy and unhappy.
Besides, to add insult to injury, those that are privileged to have jobs, earn less than their able-bodied colleagues, reveals the study. “In fact, 68 percent of people with disabilities have never looked for a job, because they assume there will be no work for them,” bemoans Lauren Graham, one of the study’s authors. Having good policies that are poorly implemented has resulted in ‘minimal and slow” in getting more disabled people into the workplace, he adds.