Cloak of Invisibility: A Literature Review of Physical Disability in Ghana

Jeff D Grischow,Nicole Stocco,Magnus Mfoafo-M’Carthy

doi:10.1177/2158244019900567

Abstract

This literature review surveys the state of current scholarship on physical disability in Ghana. The intention is to identify major themes and opinions relating to the challenges faced by Ghanaians with physical disabilities. After an extensive literature review, the authors selected 21 articles for inclusion based on the criteria that they had to focus on physical disability in a Ghanaian setting. Reviewing the articles revealed that most scholars have focused on the pervasive oppression of Ghanaians with physical disabilities. Six major topic areas emerged, including the experience of the disability rights movement from the 1990s to the present, the public perception of people with physical disabilities, the issue of families and abuse, the rights to education, challenges around employment and finances, and health care for disabled Ghanaians. This literature review presents these topics, discusses their implications, and makes suggestions for further research and action to improve human rights for Ghanaians with physical disabilities.

Highlights

The United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons With Disabilities (2006) sparked a surge in research into disability rights across the world
The passage of the Persons With Disability Act in 2006 was a meaningful step in the right direction, there is disagreement within the literature regarding whether this has improved the situation for individuals experiencing disability
While some authors state that the social situation of persons with disabilities (PWDs) has improved since the implementation of the Disability Act (Reynolds, 2010; Sossou & Yogtiba, 2016), most others argue that people living with disability are still widely discriminated

Summary

Introduction

The United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons With Disabilities (2006) sparked a surge in research into disability rights across the world. In the interest of narrowing this discussion, for this review, we have chosen to focus on physical disability. This important work relates to a large segment of the Ghanaian population, as existing research demonstrates that the physical disability rate for Ghana is currently between 3% and 4%, or between 650,000 and 860,000 people (Dassah et al, 2018; Kassah, 2008). Six major topic areas emerged: the experience of the disability rights movement from the 1990s to the present, the public perception of people with physical disabilities, the issue of families and abuse, the rights to education, challenges around employment and finances, and health care for disabled Ghanaians. Throughout this review, general trends within these six topic areas are explored in detail

Review of the Literature

Findings

Conclusion