Societal impingement on linguistic human rights of the Kenyan deaf people: pitfalls in integrating the deaf in national development

Abstract

The article analyzed ways society impinges upon the linguistic human rights of the Kenyan deaf people and how these impede their integration in national development. A short description of the notion of linguistic human rights was given which formed the basis of the perspective of the Kenyan deaf sign language users taken in this article. Data was collected through a review of secondary sources including newspaper articles, journal articles and deaf people organizations‟ publications. The findings revealed that the society has disabled the deaf people by not creating favourable conditions for the deaf to exercise their linguistic human rights which could enable them access basic human rights encapsulated in education, employment and social systems. As a result, the deaf have not been fully integrated into the national development. This article also gave recommendations meant to secure the linguistic human rights of the Kenyan deaf sign language users which include parental counselling, easy access to sign language for families and making Kenyan sign language a compulsory subject in schools in order to integrate the deaf in national development.