Ethiopian Journal of Human Rights

Ethiopian Journal of Human Rights Vol 6

2025-10-17T05:35:05+00:00

Exploring Adolescents with Disabilities’ Access to Education, Social Protection and Employment Opportunities in Ethiopia

2025-10-17T06:02:32+00:00

The importance of providing inclusive services for persons with
disabilities has been gaining increasing international attention in line
with the 2030 Sustainable Development Agenda and pledges made at the
2018 Global Summit on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities to scale up
investments in inclusive education, health and employment services.
This trend has been mirrored in Ethiopia as highlighted by the National
Action Plan for Persons with Disabilities (2012–2021). This article
explores the extent to which adolescents with disabilities in Ethiopia are
able to access inclusive services to realise their full capabilities, drawing
on longitudinal data collected before and after the onset of the Covid-19
pandemic with a sample of young people with physical, visual or hearing
impairments aged 10–19 from Afar, Amhara and Oromia Regions and
Dire Dawa City Administration. The findings highlight that while recent
investments in special needs education services have made a critical
difference to adolescents’ access to formal education in Ethiopia, there are
significant quality deficits, including inadequate teacher training, a
dearth of adapted teaching materials and infrastructure and underinvestment
in follow-on inclusive education services beyond 4th grade.
These challenges are compounded by inadequate social protection to
address economic barriers to education service uptake, and a dearth of
inclusive youth- and disability-friendly psychosocial support services.
The article concludes by reflecting on context-sensitive and cost-effective
entry points for strengthening inclusive services in Ethiopia, including
case management by social workers, in line with international
commitments enshrined in the Convention of the Rights of Persons with
Disabilities.
Keywords: Adolescents, Disabilities, Education, Inclusive Services

‘Recognition’ Status of Ethiopian Sign Language and the Deaf in Key Legislations: A Critical Review from Linguistic Human Rights Perspective

2025-10-17T06:07:20+00:00

The main objective of this study is to explore the status of the Ethiopian
Sign Language (EthSL) in key legal and policy documents in a country
where the recognition status of the language and its users have been
debatable. To identify, in detail, implicit and explicit recognitions granted
and/or missed in the documents, interpretive policy analysis is used as a
method. Using Linguistic Human Rights (LHRs) approach as a
framework, the purposely selected documents were examined critically.
It is found from the review, there is no explicit recognition granted for
EthSL as a language in its own rights at Federal or Regional constitutions
and other policies, including the new FDRE Language Policy. None of
these official documents also determined EthSL to be a working
language, language of education, Mother Tongue/primary language of
Deaf children, or community language. The educational and disability
policies and plans recommend using sign language, however not EthSL,
in various contexts primarily as an assistive mechanism and
communication tool. Further, language rights as a human right issue in
the case of the Deaf is not promoted and protected in the documents
adequately. Lack of recognizing the linguistic identity of EthSL users and
their human rights have a negative effect on their dignified life, which
requires attention in future policy formulations.
Keywords: Ethiopian Sign Language (EthSL), Recognition, Linguistic Human
Rights (LHRS), Deaf, Linguistic Identity, Language Policy and
Planning

Muted Online Voices: The Role of the Internet in Amplifying Freedom of Expression of Persons with Disabilities in Ethiopia

2025-10-17T06:10:41+00:00

Little is known about the role of the Internet in facilitating the rights of
persons with disabilities to express themselves in Ethiopia. The objective
of this article is thus to provide insights into the role of the Internet in
amplifying the opinion and action of persons with disabilities by
scrutinizing Internet accessibility and digital inclusion to exercise their
freedom of expression where inclusive policy-making could be a
challenge. The article acknowledges access to the Internet in Ethiopia is
minimal and the digital divide for persons with disabilities is visible,
potentially excluding them from accessing official information,
expressing their interests, and fighting against stereotypes they face. This
article refers to data from the literature, unstructured interviews with
purposively identified persons with disabilities, and an overview of the
online engagement of people with disabilities and their associations. It
also draws information from a research validation conference in which
participants voiced the challenges and prospects for freedom of
expression and information of persons with disabilities. The paper argues
that the Internet can serve as an effective communication sphere and
mode of expression to facilitate meaningful participation of people with
disabilities in Ethiopia. The paper further suggests the proposed draft
Access to Information proclamation to the Council of Ministers in mid-
2021 and Digital Ethiopia Strategy 2025 must recognize the importance
of digital technologies to respond to the information and expression
needs of people with disabilities.
Keywords: Freedom of Expression, People with Disabilities, Internet, Digital
Divide, Digital Inclusion

The Role of Civil Society Organizations in Promoting the Rights of Persons with Disabilities in Ethiopia

2025-10-17T06:15:39+00:00

Recognition of human rights of persons with disabilities (PWDs) by the
Convention on the Rights of Persons with disabilities (CRPD), which
Ethiopia has ratified, can be considered a beacon of hope for the
realization of equality and dignity of PWDs. There are few legislations in
Ethiopia concerning PWDs and disability related provisions. Ministries
and Agencies have begun to mainstream disability in their various
undertakings and mandates. However, the issue of civil society
organizations (CSOs) in connection to the rights of PWDs in Ethiopia is
under-explored and less researched. Taking this fact in to account, the
purpose of this article is to explore how CSOs, particularly Disabled
Persons’ Organizations (DPOs), contribute to the foundation of human
rights promotion by analyzing their roles and practices in the monitoring
and implementation of laws and policies related to PWDs. To this end,
selected provisions of the CRPD, regional human rights instruments,
national laws and academic literatures were analyzed. Having discussed
existing laws and practices, this article concludes that despite
considerable capacity and resource constraints, in order to advance
human rights of PWDs in Ethiopia, more is expected from CSOs,
especially related to collaboration with government and partnership
organizations.
Keywords: Roles of CSOs, Human Rights Promotion, DPOs, Rights of PWDs

Supported Decision-Making for Persons with Mental and/or Intellectual Disabilities: An Examination of Ethiopia’s Legal and Institutional Framework in light of the CRPD

2025-10-17T06:18:13+00:00

This article unpacks the concept of supported decision making and show
models of support practices that could be customized in Ethiopia.
Supported decision making is one of the rights of persons with
disabilities recognized under Article 12 of the Convention on the Rights
of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD). Elaborating on the concept of
supported decision making, General Comment 1 on the CRPD clarifies
the right to legal capacity of persons with disabilities. First, it succinctly
separates mental capacity from legal capacity and makes the latter
absolute right not to be impaired by the earlier. Second, it identifies two
steps in the full exercise of the right to legal capacity: recognition before
the law on an equal basis and legal agency. Third, it confirmed Persons
with disabilities must be provided with support (formal or informal) to
enable them to fully exercise their right to legal capacity. However, the
CRPD does not specify what types of support States should provide.
Hence, States are developing their own supported decision-making
system, such as the ombudsman in Sweden, enduring power of attorney
and supportive guardians and administrators in Australia. To the
contrary, Ethiopia, as it could be understood from its initial report to the
CRPD committee, fails to properly understand the concept of supported
decision-making and to move forward in legal and policy measures.
Therefore, this article, by conducting desktop review, presents foreign
experiences of supported decision-making that Ethiopian government
could take lesson from.
Keywords: Legal Capacity, Mental and Intellectual Disability, Substituted
Decision Making, Supported Decision Making

Protection of Accused Persons with Hearing and Speech Disabilities under the Ethiopian Criminal Justice System

2025-10-17T06:20:36+00:00

Human rights are protected by all human beings by birth without any
discrimination on any grounds. Despite this, equal application of the
national, regional, and international human rights and fundamental
freedoms standards have been hardly observed to persons with
disabilities in general and accused persons with hearing and speech
disabilities (PHSDs) in particular. Since the criminal justice system
operates by the vehicle of oral communication, suspects or accused
PHSDs require special attention to ensure equal enjoyment of their due
process rights. The purpose of this study is therefore to examine the
normative and practical mechanisms the Ethiopian criminal justice
system put in place to meet the appealing interests of PHSDs. The
findings of the study indicate criminally suspected and accused PHSDs
hardly exercise their due process rights in the criminal justice system of
Ethiopia. The attributing factors for this emanate from failure of the legal
frameworks to outline effective enforcement schemes, poor commitment
of law enforcing bodies to carry out their mandate in line with the
ascription of laws, and personal factors such as illiteracy. With the
aggregate effects of these circumstances, arrested PHSDs do not
effectively enjoy the rights incorporated in the Miranda Warnings.
Accused PHSDs cannot also exercise the rights safeguarded to accused
persons on an equal basis with others. This empirical study, inter alia,
examines the rights of suspected PHSDs from investigation to conviction
by assessing the normative protections and practices by employing a
qualitative research methodology.
Keywords: Procedural Safeguards, Persons with Hearing and Speech
Disabilities, Criminal Justice