Juventus Duorinaah, a longtime advocate for Ghana’s deaf community, became the country’s first deaf lawyer, as reported by Ghana Web.
According to their report, Duorinaah began his journey towards becoming a lawyer after completing his studies at the Senior High Technical School for the Deaf in 2007.
Duorinaah enrolled at the University of Ghana, which awarded him degrees in Sociology and Political Science, which he used to springboard to the United Kingdom’s Cardiff University’s School of Law and Politics, where he earned his Master of Laws in Human Rights Law.
Following this, Duorinaah returned to his native Ghana, where he enrolled in the Master of Laws program at the University of Ghana.
After completing his studies there, he studied at the Ghana School of Law for six years before passing his entrance exam.
According
to Deaf Legal Advocacy Worldwide, Duorinaah is also the Director of the Ghana National Association for the Deaf, where he supervises the implementation of advocacy projects intended to foster greater inclusion of deaf individuals in Ghanaian society. They noted that Duorinaah wants to use his legal career to advance better protection for individuals who are deaf in Ghana.According to Dennislaw News, Duorinaah joined 777 new lawyers who were called to Ghana’s Bar on Oct 11, which made him the first deaf lawyer in the country’s long history.
As reported by Al Jazeera in 2018, the work of Duorinaah is necessary in a country that has long marginalized its deaf citizenry.
According to Issac Atah, who heads the State School for the Deaf, located in eastern Accra, this is not helped by the attitudes of some parents of deaf children.
“Parents and relatives expect the school to freely provide all services and goods, even when the children are at home during holiday breaks,” Atah said. “They want us to take full responsibility for their children, both financially and in their education, while instead, they should proactively try to learn sign language and guide their children into the working society.”
Obed Deki, a 23-year-old student at the school told the outlet that unless he is around other deaf people, he feels lonely.
“At home, I generally feel lonely,” Dekyi said. “There is no one able to communicate with me. Besides, there are no other deaf children to reach out to for a conversation or a game.”
Dekyi continued, “My father and mother don’t understand sign language, which constantly results in miscommunication. When I try to express myself, they frequently call me ‘stubborn’ and punish me for my behavior. As a result, sharing my adventures with them is rather difficult.”
According to Josephine Nkrumah, the chair of the Ghanaian government’s National Commission for Civic Education, “In order to treat people with hearing disabilities as equal citizens, we need to make access to justice free from all obstacles, whether these are laws, practices or infrastructure.”
Nkrumah continued, “For instance, if a deaf citizen goes to court, but no interpreter of sign language is provided during the process, the citizen has been denied access to justice due to the absence of effective communication or information,” Nkrumah said, “and similar obstacles are seen in public offices, police stations, and hospitals.”
Atah concurred with Nkrumah, as he told Al Jazeera, “In order to counter isolation and advocate for equal rights for the deaf, the government should provide basic education on sign language at regular schools around the country.”
Atah continued, “Additionally, interpreters should be available at public offices and government institutions at all times. Only by those means the lack of communication and isolated lives of deaf people can be countered.”
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