Legal Redress for Persons with Disabilities in Pandemic Situation

Abstract

In normal times, persons with disabilities are most vulnerable. They struggle to function through diverse states of inequality in relation to others. As its raison d’ètre, human rights legal frameworks represent a pathway for mitigation and redress against the barriers that saddle persons with disabilities. To better understand persons living with disabilities, specifically in pandemic situations and to mull strategies for legal redress, we argue that there are two starting points for deconstruction of disabilities. The first is to recognize that disability is a complex concept; and the second is that in pandemic situation, disabilities involve multifaceted intersectionality. The association of COVID-19 pandemic with mental and psychosocial disabilities clearly opens new opportunities for progressive elaboration of disabilities and the scope of inhuman and degrading treatment in a complementary approach to human rights and mental health. Consequently, COVID-19 pandemic presents an important opportunity to integrate and mainstream pandemic situations and other health emergencies as elements and sites for activating human rights and legal redress aimed at catering to and protecting persons with disabilities.

Keywords: Persons with Disabilities, Disability Rights, Human Rights, Pandemic, COVID-19, Psychosocial and Mental Disability, Africa, Intersectionality, Long-Term Care, Global Health Inequity.

JEL Classification: Health, Education and Welfare