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This pioneering legal project in Zambia will protect and advance the rights of people with disabilities as well as build the capacity of legal practitioners. It will develop a draft template for replication for work elsewhere in Africa.
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Beneficiaries
Situation
The challenge: 1. Many disabled people are not aware of their rights: More than 282,000 people in Zambia are moderately or severely disabled. Most of them experience extreme rates of poverty; high unemployment; limited access to public services; and a marginalised and segregated social status. A large majority of PWDs have limited knowledge or understanding of legislation and their rights. 2. There is currently inadequate legislation: Despite Zambia signing (although not yet ratifying) the UN Convention for the Rights of Disabled Persons there does not exist appropriate legislation nor legal precedents for disability discrimination. The goals: 1. identifying and working with potential plaintiffs and defendants and determining a strategy for each case. 2. bringing precedent disability rights cases to court where necessary, securing landmark judgements. 3. publicise these cases to let people know of their rights and duties. 4. develop a Best Practice Training Resource Pack which can be made available to interested stakeholders (eg legal practices, disabled people’s organisations). 5. facilitate the transfer of legal expertise by offering disability law education to advocates and lawyers. The interest generated by the project is expected to encourage legal practices to expand their expertise to include disability law. 6. include disability law in the training of paralegals 7. build and disseminate a template of best practice to encourage replication. The methodology developed by this project will be transferable both to provinces in Zambia and to other African nations, particularly those with legal systems based on English and common law. Budget The total budget is £359,960 over a 3 year period, and we have secured £269,970 towards these costs from Irish Aid and now need to secure the balance of £89,990.