3.2 Legal and Policy Context

South Sudan has not yet ratified the CRPD and its Optional Protocol. However, it is bound to grant its citizens the same rights and entitlements as Sudan, which ratified the CRPD and its Optional Protocol in 2009. Although the South Sudanese civil society, including the OPD movement, strongly advocates ratification, renewed fighting and the deliberate obstruction of the reconstitution of parliament by the ruling party – in contradiction to the 2018 peace deal – have significantly stalled legislative processes until today (Voice of America, 2021).

On 4 August 2021, with a one-year delay, the new members of the first post-reconciliation Transitional National Legislative Assembly were sworn into office (United Nations Mission in the Republic of South Sudan [UNMISS], 2021), thus creating a new window of opportunity for civil society to push for ratification of the CRPD and influence the permanent constitution-building process to ensure that it reflects a rights-based understanding of disability. The current Transitional Constitution of the Republic of South Sudan of 2011 has several articles that are relevant for persons with disabilities. Article 6, for example, promotes the development of a sign language. Nevertheless, the Transitional Constitution takes a welfare approach to disability and only indirectly refers to persons with disabilities as part of a larger group of “persons with special needs”. Although it grants this group full participation in society and enjoyment of rights and freedoms, as well as “the right to the respect of their dignity” (Article 30), it fails to define who precisely belongs to the group of “persons with special needs”.

Policies relevant for the protection of the human rights of persons with disabilities are more advanced than the legislative procedures. In 2014, the Ministry of Education, Science and Technology, with support from the international inclusion-focused NGO Light for the World, issued a policy position paper (South Sudan, 2014) on a National Inclusive Education Policy. The position paper sets out a vision for inclusive education and seeks to ensure that all children are given the opportunity to reach their potential. However, the Ministry only adopted the policy in 2021.

Six years earlier, in 2015, the Ministry of Gender, Child and Social Welfare, Humanitarian Affairs and Disaster Management, the appointed line ministry for persons with disabilities, had passed a National Disability and Inclusion Policy (South Sudan, 2013), hence meeting one of the objectives of the 2011 South Sudan Development Plan. Unlike the Transitional Constitution, the Policy reflects a human rights-based understanding of disability and pursues a two-fold goal: 1) address and respond to the vulnerabilities of persons with disabilities; and 2) promote and protect their rights and dignity in an inclusive manner. Yet, like in many developing countries with weak state structures, implementation of these policies is stagnating and many persons with disabilities continue to face attitudinal, environmental and institutional barriers that prevent them from fully participating in society and meeting their most urgent needs.