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Some parents who have children with disabilities say that not taking them to school is not a violation of their rights, but it depends on the nature of their disability, according to a parent from Huye district who spoke to Rwandanews24.
Joseph Mugenzi is one of the parents who has a child with mental disabilities, who has never taken her to school for care as other children with disabilities to the care centers. He lives in Huye District, Huye Sector, and Rukira Cell.
“My daughter was born alive without any disability. When she had five years old, the years children start school, I noticed that she was starting to change her behavior and mannerisms. “I didn’t immediately realize that she had a mental disability because as parents we thought she was growing up, but her face is changing as the days go by.”
This girl named Musabyimana Claudine is 27 years old and was affected when she was five years old.
How the Child was affected
Mugenzi says that her daughter used to be caught being naughty and the children playing around in the garden often made her sit on the ground.
At first, all the times this child hit her parents they saw her sleeping but they did not see how she was being treated.
As soon as the parents noticed that the Child had an unusual problem as a five-year-old child. They immediately began to treat her because at that time her father said he was capable.
He says that the possible clinics and hospitals he went around depending on where the doctors were transferred her. The child was ten years old when the parents treated her in the health (doctor). After the doctor confirmed that the Child has a mental disability, they advised themselves to go and treat her in traditional medicine, thinking that he was bewitched. At this point they treated her for five years in tradition medicine.
When the friend noticed that his child had been taking different medicines for a long time, he stopped treating her and accepted what the doctors told him that her child has a mental disability.
Why the parents did not take their child to school?
This father says that due to the fact that her child is caught sitting on the ground, that is why he does not take her because he is worried that she will get sick when she is at school, on her way to or from home because she does not have someone to accompany her due to the fact that this father is at the age of The 76-year-old is also weak.
The reason why he didn’t take her there before he still had the strength is that his wife immediately took on the responsibility of taking care of the child and the household chores and the old man continued to earn a living for his family. The person at home will not know that she is disabled even though she is taking medication.
François Xavier Karangwa, the Executive Director of Umbrella of Disability Organizations promoting Health and Fighting HIV&AIDS among Persons with disabilities in Rwanda (UPHLS), saying that not taking a child with a disability to school is isolating her.
He said, “A child with a disability is a child like others and that’s why she should be given the same rights as others in health care, education, administration, receiving services, etc. If this is not given to them, they are called to discriminate against her and marginalize her because she is in a certain place. Education is special because having a disability does not mean not inability.
He goes on to say that people should separate the person from the problem. If a person has a disability in a certain organ, it does not mean that he is not healthy elsewhere. People with disabilities are capable, people should not discriminate against them.
Statistics published by UNICEF show that only 70 per cent of children with disabilities in Rwanda are enrolled in primary school. There are no penalties if government schools refuse to accept children with disabilities, and many schools are not physically accessible for these children. Schools also lack appropriate classroom materials to cater towards children with disabilities, and teachers lack understanding of differentiating learning plans for students’ various learning needs.
