ABSTRACT  

Persons with disabilities have, however remained largely invisible, often sidelined in the rights debate and unable to enjoy all the full range of human rights .This discrimination often include physical or mental disability in various aspects such as employment participation in sports and other abilities. There’s therefore a need for the law to enforce these rights. So using the doctrinal method which constitute of primary and secondary data, this researcher has embarked on this research to discover the causes of neglect of disabled persons and to make policy recommendations which shall help in solving the problems highlighted. We discovered that In the Cameroonian society, persons with disabilities are the most vulnerable and poorest because most of them are under educated and under employed. Many live in the streets and begging has become their major occupation.So It is recommended that the Government of Cameroon should assist persons with disabilities with technical training programs.       

CHAPTER 1

• General introduction
  • BACKGROUND TO THE STUDY

The issues surrounding the definition of disability are knotty and complex. Hence four different models of disability definitions exist today. There is a moral model which regards disability as a sin, a generational curse. The PWD is either paying for his or her own sin or those of his or her parents or ancestors. Many cultures still link disability with guilt, sin and shame.

The medical model regards disability as a defect or sickness which must be cured through medical intervention. This view considers disability as an individual rather than a societal problem and thus seeks solutions in the individual sphere, through therapy and technical support. In essence, neither society nor the environment has to be changed. The transformation of the disability movement into a civil rights movement was triggered by two factors: the awareness that individual abilities and problems of PWDs depend on attitudinal, architectural and structural environmental barriers; and society’s willingness to include or exclude the needs of PWDs in the designing process.

The third model, the rehabilitation model, is an offshoot of the medical model. It regards disability as a defect which must be cured medically. The need to re-introduce World War II veteran PWDs into society fuelled this model. The growing emphasis on charity, medical treatment and rehabilitation left behind the brick and mortar institutions where PWDs are warehoused today.