Today I find myself in the esteemed company of many established as well as up-and-coming law teachers and academics from all over South(ern) Africa.
The annual conference is being held at the Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University campus is Port Elizabeth. Papers are being presented on a huge range of issues, from criminal law to human rights law, competition law to family, commercial law to disability law.
Of course, I am most interested in the papers being presented on disability law. Considering that disability law research is in its infancy (compared to a number of other legal research areas), it is extremely heartening to see that no less than three papers relating to disability law are being presented at this conference.
The first of the papers deals with the rights of persons with disabilities to education; the second (which I will be presenting) is on the African approach to implementation of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities and the last deals with persons with disabilities who are HIV positive.
Rather an eclectic bunch, no?
Rather than focus on my own presentation, I think the more interesting of the papers is the one relating to the right to education. Not being anything close to an expert on the right to education, I believe that there is a huge gap in the area of education for children with disabilities. Think back to the early days of South African basic education: 'special classes' (or 'hulpklasse') abound, in which traditional teaching material was either disregarded or, for lack of a better word, 'dumbed down' so that learners in these classes were able to pass their respective exams. In many cases, learners of different ages and languages were put together in the same class, having to cope with the same material. The problems created by this approach are clear. One can only hope that leaps and bounds have been made in the education of learners who are not comfortable with the traditional schooling methods and materials in order that these learners leave high school with the same standard of education as learners in the 'normal' classes.
On a more personal note, I am quite confident that my presentation will be received well. I am not suggesting anything particularly controversial, although there is always potential to ruffle feathers! I am also a little intimidated by being (as usual at these events) apparently the youngest presenter. It's quite sad being called 'ma'am' by some of the student assistants at this conference! Perhaps I should start walking around with photo identification to prove that I do not yet qualify as a 'ma'am'. Ah well, such are the problems of a (very) budding academic! Not too long from now, I shall probably wish that I still get called 'ma'am' instead of 'that old prof over there'.
Nose back on the grindstone - I have a presentation to get ready for!
Tuesday, 10 July 2012
Monday, 2 July 2012
Disability, sexuality and rights
After a long silence, it is time for me to start (again) making inroads on the plethora of ideas I've had for blog posts.
Perhaps the easiest place to start is with the upcoming 7th Global Conference by Interdisciplinary.net conference, The Erotic. The conference blurb reads:
Perhaps the easiest place to start is with the upcoming 7th Global Conference by Interdisciplinary.net conference, The Erotic. The conference blurb reads:
Mapping the field of the erotic is a complex and frustrating endeavour; as something which permeates lived experience, interpersonal relationships, intellectual reflection, aesthetic tastes and sensibilities, the erotic is clearly multi-layered and requires a plethora of approaches, insights and perspectives if we are to better to understand, appreciate and define it.
This inter- and trans- disciplinary project seeks to explore critical issues in relation to eroticism and the erotic through its history, its emergence in human development, both individual and phylogenetic, as well as its expression in national and cultural histories across the world, including issues of transgression and censorship. The project will also explore erotic imagination and its representation in art, art history, literature, film and music. These explorations inevitably touch on the relationship between sexualities, gender and bodies, along with questions concerning the perverse, fetishism and fantasy, pornography and obscenity.
Pretty interesting stuff. I will be presenting a paper discussing the sexual rights of persons with disabilities, the main premise of which is that persons with disabilities have sexual needs and urges, but society either frowns upon sexual activity between or involving persons with disabilities or denies that it exists at all.
Perhaps the lack of recognition of the sexual rights of persons with disabilities should be paid more attention when initiating campaigns for awareness and mainstreaming? Food for thought.
On a more personal note, the Conference is being held from 10 - 12 September at Oxford University. I could not be more thrilled, and I am extremely honoured that my paper has been chosen for presentation at such a prestigious University!
Friday, 17 February 2012
Covering our tracks
After having posted about the proposed re-registration of all social grant recipients in South Africa I have made a conscious decision to follow all the developments in the process with an eagle eye. As a result of this determination, I have come across another news report that quotes the same Minister on the same process. A number of inconsistencies are immediately clear in the statements made to the press, which reinforce my belief that the re-registration is not only ill-conceived, but also poorly planned and the repercussions either not considered, or considered unimportant.
In the older article which was the subject of my previous post, the Minister insists that the re-registration will be carried out in a door-to-door manner, with basically universal individual checks going on. In the new report, the Minister asserts that re-registration will be done at the pay points where the grants are collected by recipients each month. This is not only a contradiction, but also seems to fly in the fact of the supposed purpose of the re-registration. If the idea is to identify those people who should or should not be receiving grants, then simply making a note of those people who pitch up to collect the grants is pointless. Also, not all grant recipients collect their money at a pay point - many people have their grants paid into a bank or Post Office account. How will these people be re-registered?
I believe the Department needs to make a firm decision on what it is that they are hoping to accomplish. If the goal is to simply have an accurate database of grant recipients, then calling this process a re-registration is appropriate. If, however, the goal is to compile a database in addition to making calls as to who should be stripped of their grant and making new awards of grants, then the term re-registration is a misnomer. The Minister has alluded to both of these, but the language used and explanations given are somewhat confusing.
The idea of home visits for each grant recipient has now been scaled down to include only those people over the age of 75, and those who are confined to their beds. While the individual home visits notion was fraught with logistical problems, I do not believe that conducting home visits for a small group of persons is feasible either. What about recipients who travel long distances to and from collection points?
It appears to me that the Minister has been made aware of the problems created by her initial statement and is now trying valiantly to make it appear as if all the issues have been well though out. I believe her follow-up remarks have made it rather clear that the opposite is true.
At last year's Disabled Peoples International 8th World Assembly, the Minister for Women, Children and People with Disabilities made mention of the fact that coverage provided by social grants should not only be extended to provide more people with financial support, but also that the level of financial support should be increased from the current amount of R1140 per month for disability and old age grants. However, the President made a statement in November of last year emphasising that South Africa should not fall into the trap of becoming a 'welfare state' and that general revenue should be used to further development rather than 'feeding the poor'. How can it be that the President's viewpoint differ so drastically from that of his Minister?
As I mentioned previously, I am of the firm opinion that the re-registration (if that is an accurate description) is going to create huge logistical problems, and appears to be ill-conceived and poorly planned. one can only hope that the grant recipients, who are in dire need of financial support, are not the ones who suffer as a result of the governments' decision to shake things up under the guise of fraud and corruption prevention.
In the older article which was the subject of my previous post, the Minister insists that the re-registration will be carried out in a door-to-door manner, with basically universal individual checks going on. In the new report, the Minister asserts that re-registration will be done at the pay points where the grants are collected by recipients each month. This is not only a contradiction, but also seems to fly in the fact of the supposed purpose of the re-registration. If the idea is to identify those people who should or should not be receiving grants, then simply making a note of those people who pitch up to collect the grants is pointless. Also, not all grant recipients collect their money at a pay point - many people have their grants paid into a bank or Post Office account. How will these people be re-registered?
I believe the Department needs to make a firm decision on what it is that they are hoping to accomplish. If the goal is to simply have an accurate database of grant recipients, then calling this process a re-registration is appropriate. If, however, the goal is to compile a database in addition to making calls as to who should be stripped of their grant and making new awards of grants, then the term re-registration is a misnomer. The Minister has alluded to both of these, but the language used and explanations given are somewhat confusing.
The idea of home visits for each grant recipient has now been scaled down to include only those people over the age of 75, and those who are confined to their beds. While the individual home visits notion was fraught with logistical problems, I do not believe that conducting home visits for a small group of persons is feasible either. What about recipients who travel long distances to and from collection points?
It appears to me that the Minister has been made aware of the problems created by her initial statement and is now trying valiantly to make it appear as if all the issues have been well though out. I believe her follow-up remarks have made it rather clear that the opposite is true.
At last year's Disabled Peoples International 8th World Assembly, the Minister for Women, Children and People with Disabilities made mention of the fact that coverage provided by social grants should not only be extended to provide more people with financial support, but also that the level of financial support should be increased from the current amount of R1140 per month for disability and old age grants. However, the President made a statement in November of last year emphasising that South Africa should not fall into the trap of becoming a 'welfare state' and that general revenue should be used to further development rather than 'feeding the poor'. How can it be that the President's viewpoint differ so drastically from that of his Minister?
As I mentioned previously, I am of the firm opinion that the re-registration (if that is an accurate description) is going to create huge logistical problems, and appears to be ill-conceived and poorly planned. one can only hope that the grant recipients, who are in dire need of financial support, are not the ones who suffer as a result of the governments' decision to shake things up under the guise of fraud and corruption prevention.
Thursday, 16 February 2012
The absurdity of South African government
Since I have been silent for quite some time, it had to be something big to make me come out of the woodwork and make my opinions known. The South African Department of Social Development has announced that all of the estimated 15 million social grant recipients in the country will be investigated and made to re-register in order to create a database of grant recipients and in order to prevent fraud in relation to the receipt of grants by persons who are not entitled thereto.
There are numerous problems with this process, which I will list below.
1. Absurdly, the supposed reason for this re-registration is to create a national database of grant recipients. In terms of the South African Social Security Agency Act of 2004, the Agency (Sassa) was tasked with creating such a database in terms of aforementioned Act. What the Minister is saying is that no such database exists, which means according to my supervisor Professor Kitty Malherbe, that Sassa has been operating illegally since its inception.
2. The Minister has said that Sassa will run this re-registration, the aims of which is to combat fraud and corruption. Hang on - isn't Sassa currently involved in illegal activity, since it apparently does not have the legally required database?
3. 15 Sassa officials have been arrested for engaging in illegal activity relating to grant recipients' fraud. This is the same Sassa who will be running the re-registration to combat fraud..... Talk about circular logic.
4. One of the aims of this process is to determine a) those persons receiving grants who are not entitled to and b) which persons who are not currently receiving grants but who are entitled thereto. The Minister has said that people will be sent door to door to facilitate this investigation. There are a number of problems with this. Firstly, how can you determine who shouldn't be getting a grant, if you cannot adequately identify those people who should? This is where disability comes in. South Africa has no workable definition of disability. We can therefore not identify exactly who is disabled for purposes of receiving the grant. how, the, can we assert that a particular person should have their grant taken away, if we cannot provide some solid proof that they are not disabled for purposes of the grant?
The other major problem is that this process is going to require manpower. Which means people need to be trained and hired. Which requires funding. Which will come from.....? Public funds that could be better utilised in providing better social services for disadvantaged individuals, rather than engaging in this time consuming waste of resources. As for the door-to-door thing, what this process amounts to is a review of each one of the 50 million people in South Africa. How else can it be determined who should or should not be receiving a particular grant?
Mention must again be made of the notion of combating fraud and corruption by means of this re-registration. What makes anyone think that the official doing the door-to-door investigation is above reproach and could not be swayed by a few thousand rand or similar offer? There is nothing preventing the individual involved in the review from incorrectly recording the details of individuals to ensure that their social grants are not ceased.
The mind boggles.
While the objectives of re-registration are certainly admirable, this is NOT the means to achieve those ends. One cannot in the same breath accuse Sassa of having failed to meet its legislative obligations, employing corrupt officials and then expect that same institution of solving all the problems relating to fraud and the non-compliance with legislation! In other words, some other mechanism of reviewing the awarding of social grants needs to be implemented. All this process is going to achieve is angering the public and possibly depriving those individuals who need social grants the most from those funds.
We will have to wait and see how the debacle unfolds.
There are numerous problems with this process, which I will list below.
1. Absurdly, the supposed reason for this re-registration is to create a national database of grant recipients. In terms of the South African Social Security Agency Act of 2004, the Agency (Sassa) was tasked with creating such a database in terms of aforementioned Act. What the Minister is saying is that no such database exists, which means according to my supervisor Professor Kitty Malherbe, that Sassa has been operating illegally since its inception.
2. The Minister has said that Sassa will run this re-registration, the aims of which is to combat fraud and corruption. Hang on - isn't Sassa currently involved in illegal activity, since it apparently does not have the legally required database?
3. 15 Sassa officials have been arrested for engaging in illegal activity relating to grant recipients' fraud. This is the same Sassa who will be running the re-registration to combat fraud..... Talk about circular logic.
4. One of the aims of this process is to determine a) those persons receiving grants who are not entitled to and b) which persons who are not currently receiving grants but who are entitled thereto. The Minister has said that people will be sent door to door to facilitate this investigation. There are a number of problems with this. Firstly, how can you determine who shouldn't be getting a grant, if you cannot adequately identify those people who should? This is where disability comes in. South Africa has no workable definition of disability. We can therefore not identify exactly who is disabled for purposes of receiving the grant. how, the, can we assert that a particular person should have their grant taken away, if we cannot provide some solid proof that they are not disabled for purposes of the grant?
The other major problem is that this process is going to require manpower. Which means people need to be trained and hired. Which requires funding. Which will come from.....? Public funds that could be better utilised in providing better social services for disadvantaged individuals, rather than engaging in this time consuming waste of resources. As for the door-to-door thing, what this process amounts to is a review of each one of the 50 million people in South Africa. How else can it be determined who should or should not be receiving a particular grant?
Mention must again be made of the notion of combating fraud and corruption by means of this re-registration. What makes anyone think that the official doing the door-to-door investigation is above reproach and could not be swayed by a few thousand rand or similar offer? There is nothing preventing the individual involved in the review from incorrectly recording the details of individuals to ensure that their social grants are not ceased.
The mind boggles.
While the objectives of re-registration are certainly admirable, this is NOT the means to achieve those ends. One cannot in the same breath accuse Sassa of having failed to meet its legislative obligations, employing corrupt officials and then expect that same institution of solving all the problems relating to fraud and the non-compliance with legislation! In other words, some other mechanism of reviewing the awarding of social grants needs to be implemented. All this process is going to achieve is angering the public and possibly depriving those individuals who need social grants the most from those funds.
We will have to wait and see how the debacle unfolds.
Friday, 6 January 2012
Nose to the grindstone
If I have been extremely quiet for a little while, it is because I have now immersed myself so deeply in the next chapter of my doctoral thesis, it is hard for me to tell where I end and the thesis begins.
So since I am so wrapped up in my on troubles, a little voice has been telling me that I need to step out of this bubble I've created for myself and remind myself of what is happening out in the real world. What I have found interesting are the following articles:
Boris Johnson attacks planned cuts to disability payments:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2012/jan/06/boris-johnson-attacks-disability-payments-cuts
Disabilities disappear on slopes:
http://www.vancouversun.com/sports/Weekend+Extra+Disabilities+disappear+slopes/5959748/story.html
Ontario disabilities act creates compliance confusion:
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/small-business/sb-marketing/customer-service/ontario-disabilities-act-creates-compliance-confusion/article2292901/?utm_medium=Feeds%3A%20RSS%2FAtom&utm_source=Home&utm_content=2292901
The latter really raises some important issues - it's all good and well to theorise about improvements, better protection, universal design etc etc, but how does one go about allowing these issues to be implemented in a practical way?
It's a conundrum, I say!
I plan on being more active on this blog once this chapter has been completed. It's hard going. If anyone has any tips or support, feel free to comment or email me at ywiid16@gmail.com.
So since I am so wrapped up in my on troubles, a little voice has been telling me that I need to step out of this bubble I've created for myself and remind myself of what is happening out in the real world. What I have found interesting are the following articles:
Boris Johnson attacks planned cuts to disability payments:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2012/jan/06/boris-johnson-attacks-disability-payments-cuts
Disabilities disappear on slopes:
http://www.vancouversun.com/sports/Weekend+Extra+Disabilities+disappear+slopes/5959748/story.html
Ontario disabilities act creates compliance confusion:
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/small-business/sb-marketing/customer-service/ontario-disabilities-act-creates-compliance-confusion/article2292901/?utm_medium=Feeds%3A%20RSS%2FAtom&utm_source=Home&utm_content=2292901
The latter really raises some important issues - it's all good and well to theorise about improvements, better protection, universal design etc etc, but how does one go about allowing these issues to be implemented in a practical way?
It's a conundrum, I say!
I plan on being more active on this blog once this chapter has been completed. It's hard going. If anyone has any tips or support, feel free to comment or email me at ywiid16@gmail.com.
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