Migrants and internally displaced people with disabilities experience a disproportionately high number of human rights violations in Africa. The recent Annual Disability Rights in Africa Conference hosted at UP placed this subject at the centre of its discussion.

On 17 and 18 November 2022, the Centre for Human Rights at the University of Pretoria (UP) hosted the Annual Disability Rights in Africa Conference at the Southern Sun Hotel at OR Tambo International Airport. The conference theme was ‘Migration, displacement and disability: A human rights response’, and focused on respecting, protecting, promoting and fulfilling the rights of people with disabilities who migrate or who are internally displaced.

Across Africa, many people, including those with disabilities, are migrating to other countries or are internally displaced within a country’s borders due to factors such as armed conflict, natural disasters caused by climate change, poor economic conditions and food shortages. People with disabilities migrate voluntarily and involuntarily in search of security, food and better prospects.

Research indicates that migrants and internally displaced people with disabilities experience a disproportionately high number of human rights violations. These violations include limited access to healthcare and rehabilitation services, lack of access to essential support services and assistive technologies, and limited access to adequate food and shelter. These have an adverse impact on the quality of life of migrants with disabilities.

At a regional level, human rights instruments – such as the Protocol to the African Charter on Human and People’s Rights on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities in Africa and the Convention on the Protection and Assistance of Internally Displaced Persons in Africa – contain provisions that require states to ensure that people with disabilities are not arbitrarily displaced and that the human rights of all migrants and internally displaced people who have disabilities are respected. These instruments provide a legislative framework for the protection of their rights.

It is imperative that African states implement these provisions and partner with civil society and other stakeholders to protect the human rights and fundamental freedoms of migrants and internally displaced people with disabilities.