The National Human Rights Commission, NHRC, and the Nigeria Police Force, NPF, have lamented the dearth of sign language experts in the country.
Cross River State Coordinator of NHRC, Mr Remi Ajuga and head of Gender Desk at the Cross River State Police Command, SP Philo Modor, called for training of more Nigerians in sign language interpretation.
They spoke at sensitization program on Sexual Reproductive Health and Rights organised by Girls’ Power Initiative, the implementation partner of WeLead Project.
Ajuga said courts, police departments, social organizations and all government offices should be encouraged to train sign language interpreters to help them attend to speech challenged persons.
He said, “This call is in line with the Sustainable Development Goals, SDG, of World Health Organization, WHO, which calls for action to end inequality and ensure that all enjoy justice, health and wellbeing to the extent that no one is left behind.
“Training large numbers of sign language interpreters will allow for greater inclusiveness of most of those challenged by inability to talk.
“We have had several of such Nigerians come to the Commission to complain but since there’s dearth of sign language interpreters, they have hardly been attended to satisfactorily. They have also had such lack of satisfactory attention in other offices.
“So if we have such experts, they will readily interprete their complaints for better attention.”
Speaking on behalf of the Police Force, Modor recalled an instance where a speech impaired person was accused falsely and brought from Ikom in Central Cross River State for detention in Calabar.
“It was when we got the services of a trained sign language expert that we knew or understood the correct position that the challenged person was not guilty,” she said.
She called for training of more Nigerians in sign language as a way of assuaging the pains and feelings of speech challenged persons.
Head of programmes at GPI, Ndodeye Bassey Obongha, said there are plans to organize sign language training sessions for representatives from 30 organizations in the state, early next year.
