… Persons With Disability
A group of Persons With Disabilities (PWDs) is making a strong case for the government to consider extending the time for the 2021 population and housing census which ended on the 11th of July.
In a statement, they lamented that the questionnaires that were used to cover the census did not ask relevant questions pertaining to PWDs.
“We also want to alert you that, PWDs who have been counted say enumerators also ask irrelevant questions. For example, the enumerators may see a person with disabilities and ask him or her whether she can see, can walk, can bath herself, can eat herself, etc. These questions with regards to PWDs are not appropriate,” the group lamented.
“They don’t capture the various category of persons with disabilities in the country, such as physically Disabled, Blind and partially sighted, Deaf, persons with Albinism, Cerebral Palsy, Down Syndrome and Little people, etc.,” read the statement signed by Frederick Assor, Joyce Gyamfi and Alex Tetteh.
It also lamented that the time allocated for the census was too short to enable enumerators to capture all the proper data. Consequently, many PWDs were not enumerated.
“The Concerned Persons with Disability is not oblivious to the importance of the census to every nation like ours, it helps in public policy, development and knowledge of the number of persons that reside in the country at a given time. In other words, wrong data collection, limited time to which exercise is being conducted, etc. all have major implications for the outcome of the exercise,” they warned.