Human rights lawyer Francis-Xavier Sosu has described as “distasteful” and “unacceptable” a policy by African World Airline (AWA) which discriminates against Persons with Disabilities (PwD).

The company’s policy does not accommodate persons who cannot board their planes unaided. The policy says: “Acceptance for carriage of incapacitated persons, persons with illness or other people requiring special assistance is subject to prior arrangement with us.”

To this end, on Saturday, 5 May 2018, staff of the airline prevented a physically challenged person, Rita Kriba from boarding a flight to Kumasi from Accra.

Ms Kriba who walks with the aid of crutches was prevented from boarding the flight due to her condition. She therefore missed her flight as all attempts to convince the staff to allow her board the plane proved futile.

Speaking about the development on the Executive Breakfast Show (EBS) on Class91.3FM on Monday, 7 May 2018, Mr Sosu described it as “unfortunate”.

He told show host Moro Awudu that: “it is very unfortunate , it is disgraceful and very distasteful particularly in this day and age when all the international community and all persons have been encouraged to arrange their things in such a way that the inclusion of persons with disability would be a matter of priority, particularly, in businesses and in such international platforms, so its quite unfortunate that this woman with a physical challenge will endure this humiliation which perhaps has also led to some losses.

“It is a clear case of discrimination against her on basis of her physical challenge and that violates almost all international standards on how to treat persons with disability and violates all the statutes on human rights protection and protection of persons with disability. So clearly it is very unacceptable and very unfortunate.”

Mr Sosu added that a company can “absolutely not” have a policy that discriminates against persons with disability.

He explained that this is so because “fundamental human rights are things we are entitled to just because we are human beings. The fact that a person has a physical disability does not make that person less of a human being. Once we begin to do that, we’ll begin to violate the dignity of persons just because they have some physical challenge and that is not acceptable, it is not allowed.”

Mr Sosu stressed that if there is any rule or regulation or any by-law or administrative instruction of any entity whether private or public that seeks to give preferential treatment to people because they are physically challenged, that rule will be infringing on the 1992 constitution and it will also be infringing on all the rules and international standards for treating persons with disability.