International Day of Persons With Disabilities

The beginning of December marks a slew of internationally observed days, where various causes, most of them relating to human rights, are trumpeted and then, all too often, tucked aside for another year, relegated out of sight and out of mind.

As such, I have a slightly conflicted relationship with these days of international observance, but it's hard not to recognize them if I want to be viewed within my newsroom as a journalist acutely concerned with human rights issues. Which, of course, is not to say I think there's anything wrong with recognizing such days; I've just tried to impart the notion to my Kalleone colleagues that these issues are patently newsworthy on the other 364 days of the year as well.

With that in mind, in late November, my colleague Princetta and I began work on a story for December 3, the International Day of Persons With Disabilities. We visited the house below, at 19 Walpole St. in downtown Freetown.


The house was home to 150 members of the United Disabled Organization, who had been squatting illegally in the place for about 11 months. The majority of them suffer from polio, though the residents also included war amputees and even able-bodied orphans who feel kinship with their disabled brethren, and who often push their wheelchairs for them when they beg in the streets.

Such feelings of acceptance can be hard to come by for marginalized populations throughout the developing world. Here in Sierra Leone, those with disabilities don't seem to top anyone's priority list. I don't think I've seen a single wheelchair ramp since arriving in the country.

And it's not as though disabled persons comprise an insignificant percentage of the population. Although I was hard-pressed to come across any authoritative statistics, to say that the percentage of the population with a disability in Sierra Leone is about as high as anywhere in the world is by no means a disputed claim.

Amputees abound, thanks to the sadistic actions of rebels that gave their victims the perverse choice of whether they wanted to have a "long- or short-sleeved shirt", essentially forcing victims to choose whether their arm would be severed at the wrist or elbow. Add to that a health care system that consistently ranks among the world's worst, and ailments that would be immunized against or quickly treated and neutralized in the Western world can instead cripple Sierra Leoneans for life.

The hour I spent talking to the residents of 19 Walpole St. was edifying to be sure. When I asked one of the polio victims when he contracted the disease, he stared back at me blankly. Trying to better explain my question, I said, "I'm just curious when and how you contracted polio."

"According to [local] history, it's witchcraft," he said. "I don't know."

I'll be perfectly honest. I didn't know much about polio until I started this story. But I was pretty sure witchcraft was not the scientifically accepted cause of the disease, and my research supported my gut instinct on that one. It is primarily contracted via the consumption of contaminated food or water.

The witchcraft theory, however, does explain the overwhelming stigma experienced by disabled persons, which can often include disassociation by their own family members. The Walpole group also made serious allegations of police brutality and political indifference.

When we were unable to confirm any of their claims, though, our story ended up taking a very different direction, focusing on the attempt of Sierra Leone's first disabled parliamentarian, whose mere election represents a glimmer of hope, to present a private member's bill regarding disability rights.

There were notable inconsistencies in the stories of the Walpole group, particularly when set against the information provided by the aforementioned disabled parliamentarian, Julius Cuffie, a vocal activist that made counter-allegations of his own. The truth, I'm sure, lies somewhere in between.

But ultimately, no matter what degree of truth they were espousing, I felt for these people, whose lives are undeniably difficult. I was taken aback by the suggestion of the group's spokesman that, faced with eviction on account of their squatting, they would welcome a move to Pademba Road, the country's main prison facility. It meant shelter and food, he reasoned.

As I packed my gear away and prepared to leave, an older man who had been asleep as Princetta and I conducted our interviews came up to me with a pleading look in his eyes and impelled me to take down his name. He explained to me that he'd been a mechanic until he fell into a sewage drain a little over a year ago, injuring his left foot so badly that his walking is severely hampered.

It's mind-boggling to think that a simple misstep (and with the ubiquity of open sewers, it would not take much, especially in the black of night) could so drastically alter your way of life. In all likelihood, the sordid state of his foot was merely the result of a bad break that received absolutely no medical attention.

It made me very glad that I lived in Canada, not Sierra Leone, when I decided it was a good idea to cut my fingers off with a radial arm saw, and I quickly shook off visions of how my life would be different - of how it would still be vastly preferable to the majority of the people I was interviewing and yet, in my mind, singular in its horror - were it not for free health care and the surgical expertise of Dr. Brian Evans.

As I listened to this man explaining his trade, I was struck by the earnestness in his voice. When he finished his story, he thanked me for listening, a glisten in the corner of his eye betraying the formation of a tear.

All I did was listen. That really shouldn't have meant so much to him. It shouldn't classify me as part of an overwhelming minority that is willing to hear what the disenfranchised have to say.

What it should do, and has done thus far, is strengthen my resolve to tell important stories, ideally better than we did under a rushed timeline with this one.