Hearing impairment ≠ deaf&dumb!

It is inaccurate to equate a legal term like 'hearing impairment' with outdated terms like 'deaf-mute' and 'deaf and dumb'."

Certain role players can downplay the significance of hearing impairment as much as they like. However, the reality remains: "The South African White Paper on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (2015) emphasizes the importance of accessibility and inclusivity for individuals with sensory impairments, including those with hearing impairments" Fanie du Toit

Key aspects include:

• Accessibility Measures: The White Paper highlights the need for accessible communication, including sign language interpretation, braille, and alternate communication methods.

  
  

• Equal Access to Services: It emphasizes ensuring equal access to services, including education, healthcare, employment, transportation, and justice.

  
  

• Reasonable Accommodation: The document stresses the importance of providing reasonable accommodation to individuals with disabilities, including those with sensory impairments.

  
  

• Inclusive Design: It promotes inclusive design principles to ensure public facilities, services, and information are accessible to all.

Specific initiatives and directives mentioned in the White Paper include:

• Training and Capacity Building: Providing training for stakeholders on accessibility issues facing persons with disabilities.

  
  

• Public Awareness: Educating the public about the rights of persons with disabilities and promoting inclusivity.

  
  

• Representation and Participation: Ensuring representation of persons with disabilities in decision-making bodies and promoting their participation in society.

The White Paper also highlights the importance of:

1. Accessible Information: Providing information in accessible formats, such as braille, large print, digital formats, and easy-to-read materials.

2. Communication Access: Ensuring access to communication, including sign language interpretation and augmentative and alternate communication methods.

Overall, the White Paper aims to promote the rights and dignity of persons with disabilities, including those with sensory impairments, and ensure their full participation in society.

My message to those who make it their mission to stigmatize the reality of hearing impairment is that they deprive thousands of individuals with hearing loss of the opportunity to negotiate within the framework of disability policy, the social model of disability, and reasonable accommodation legislation.

It is your right to be part of a community that doesn't support the term (e.g. the Hard of Hearing Community), but that doesn't give you the right to belittle terms that affect nearly 10 million South Africans with various degrees of hearing impairments. They work and live in mainstream society, belong to various cultures and speak various languages.

Note: No way of thinking commands respect if the follower labels other ways of thinking as inappropriate, as we often see during the annual Deaf Awareness Campaign. This illustrates the importance of equity and inclusion.

Please contact me for sensitisation sessions on hearing disability

Sources:

1. White Paper on the Rights of Persons with Disability (2015)

2. UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (2006)

3. World Report on Hearing (2021)