By Jenifer James
The Community Empowerment for Progress Organization (CEPO) Edmund Yakani urged the leadership of South Sudan to prioritize the inclusion of persons with disabilities (PWDs) in the establishment of key transitional justice institutions.
These institutions, mandated by laws signed by President Salva Kiir last year, include the Commission for Truth, Healing and Reconciliation and the Compensation and Reparation Authority.
In a statement to the media on Monday, the executive director of Community Empowerment for Progress Organization (CEPO), Edmund Yakani, emphasized that transitional justice must reflect the diversity of South Sudan’s population, including those most affected by the country’s conflict and persons with disability.
‘’ We would like to bring to the attention of the leaders of the country that since South Sudan is a state party to the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, we want to see that among the seven commissioners for the Commission for Truth, Healing and Reconciliation, one of them should be a member of persons with disability. And among the membership of compensation respirational authority also, we need to see effective representation of persons with disability because persons with disability are also people who are affected with the violence and they have felt directly the impact of the broken social fabric among ourselves due to the violence that occurred since 2013. So we are calling for inclusivity in the establishment of the Institutions for Transitional Justice as per the laws that were signed by President,’’ Yakani said.
The chapter 5 of the RTGoNU, it stated that government and peace partners would establish through legislation the transitional justice institutions, which include the Commission for Truth, Reconciliation, and Healing (CTRH), Compensation and Reparation Authority (CRA), and the Hybrid Court for South Sudan (HCSS).