Include us in population census – Persons with Albinism appeal

The Ghana Association of Persons with Albinism (GAPA) has appealed to the Ghana Statistical Service (GSS) to include its members in the upcoming Population and Housing Census.

It said the GSS clustered all persons with disability into one group instead of segregating them for easy identification and targeting for effective planning.

“We cannot group all persons with disability as one, we need to segregate them in groupings like albinism group, deaf group, blind group, physically disabled group etc to get an accurate database,” the Association said.

Mr Newton Kwabla Katseku, the Executive Director, GAPA, in an interview with the Ghana News Agency, said the country did not have the accurate percentage of disabilities as it relied on generalisation than actual figures, which was not the best practice.

He said the Association was part of the processes in developing the data collection tool for the census from the beginning but when the final draft came out, it realised that not all the groups of disability were captured in the tool, especially persons with albinism.

“We are not happy about our neglect because we wanted to have accurate data of persons with albinism to ensure timely dissemination of information and continuous provision of support services,” he said.

Mr Katseku said disability was not only about being physically disabled, blind or deaf and that proper definition and classification was needed for reliable and accurate data for planning.

He said the country had over nine groupings of disabilities but the GSS allegedly concentrated on only three, neglecting persons with albinism.

The GSS on Monday started numbering structures as part of the Population and Housing Census scheduled to start on June 28, 2021.

Source: GNA