Women with Disability Development and Advocacy Organisation (WODAO) has urged the government to deepen its commitment to disability rights, particularly for women and girls as the world commemorates the 2025 International Day of Persons with Disabilities (IDPD).
For WODAO, a women-led disability rights organisation working across the Volta and Oti Regions, the day is more than symbolic, according to release signed by Madam Veronica Denyo Kofiedu, Executive Director of WODAO, to the Ghana News Agency.
The IDPD is on the theme, “Fostering Disability-Inclusive Societies for Advancing Social Progress,”
It gave a reminder that true national progress could not be claimed, while persons with disabilities continued to face exclusion, discrimination, and systemic barriers.
Women and girls with disabilities, the group stresses, remained among the most marginalised populations in Ghana, confronting challenges in education, healthcare, employment, governance, and safety.
WODAO has welcomed the government’s Free Tertiary Education Initiative for Persons with Disabilities, describing it as a landmark step toward expanding access to higher education.
The organisation commended President John Dramani Mahama, for the policy, noting that education is a powerful tool for empowerment and social transformation.
Yet, WODAO insists that the initiative must be implemented equitably, accessible to all categories of disabilities, and gender-responsive, ensuring that women and girls are not left behind.
Despite progress, WODAO points to enduring obstacles that continue to hold back persons with disabilities, which include stigma, discrimination, and harmful cultural norms, limited disability-friendly public infrastructure, barriers to inclusive education and assistive devices.
Others are; inadequate livelihood and employment opportunities, underrepresentation of women with disabilities in leadership, weak enforcement of disability laws and policies and heightened safeguarding risks for children and women with disabilities.
WODAO called for legislative and policy action in the review and Passage of the Persons with Disabilities Act (Act 715) and urged Parliament to fast-track revisions to align with the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD), and strengthen accessibility enforcement, and embed protections for women and girls.
WODAO called on Ghana to ratify Africa’s landmark disability rights framework, which addresses continent-specific issues such as harmful cultural practices and reinforces protections for women and girls.
With Parliament considering a 30 per cent gender representation mandate, WODAO insisted that a dedicated sub-quota for women with disabilities was essential and that, “Without it, women with disabilities risk exclusion even within broader gender equality efforts.”
Beyond government, WODAO called on development partners to expand investment in disability-focused programmes, traditional leaders to challenge stigma, media organisations to amplify positive narratives, and all Ghanaians to embrace inclusion as a collective duty.
As Ghana joins the global community in marking IDPD 2025, WODAO’s message is clear that progress must be intentional.
“When we uplift persons with disabilities especially women and girls, we strengthen our communities, promote equality, and build a Ghana where no one is left behind,” the organisation affirmed.