Govt must put in place measures to protect childre...

Govt must put in place measures to protect children with disabilities during pandemics

**Lilian Gwanyanya - Pic By Undefined Media.jpg**

Munyaradzi Doma

When the country was hit by the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020, people panicked and during that time, a lot of measures were prescribed to ensure that citizens were protected.

But unfortunately, a group of people seems to have been ignored as some of the health measures were not all inclusive.

And that group is children with disabilities, who were among the most vulnerable during this deadly pandemic which killed millions worldwide.

Although the World Health Organisation has declared that Covid-19 no longer constitutes a Public Health Emergency of International Concern, the global health body has strongly warned that the pandemic is still with us and that we have to remain prepared for another pandemic.

And it is in the same line of thought that Lilian Gwanyanya, the director and founder of Centre for Children with Disabilities, said in the event of future pandemics, rights of children with disabilities should be protected.

During the time of the pandemic, she saw first-hand how children with disabilities and their families were living.

“The people who were most affected by Covid-19 were children with disabilities and my statement is now to say, whenever we face a pandemic, our government should not forget the most vulnerable people and this includes children with disabilities because usually their rights are not protected,” said Gwanyanya in an interview.

Gwanyanya’s organisation came into being in 2019 and they had to go into the communities to find out how children with disabilities and their families were faring during the Covid-19 era.

“We discovered a number of challenges they (children with disabilities and their families) were going through. As parents, they were struggling to put into effect the information they were getting on Covid-19 so that the information would benefit their children.

“This is so because for most of these children to thrive; they would need assistance and in the process, there is that kind of handling. By that time everyone was told to be very safe especially through sanitising hands, but for that child who crawls, it was not easy to assist.

“And when it came to the part of education, the other children without disabilities could benefit because they could learn while at home, especially in 2020 when schools were closed.

“But whereas children with special needs; they needed their teachers who were experienced in teaching special classes but these could not be available because people were always indoors because of the pandemic,” she added.

She further revealed stated that society should learn from the Covid-19 pandemic so that as measures are put in place to protect the people, a thought should be spared for children with disabilities.