African doctoral researcher receives three fellowships to probe job equity for workers with disabilities

Reasonable accommodation refers to the obligation of employers to ensure any qualified hire can participate in the workplace without experiencing undue hardship. This principle is recognized around the world, and is codified in the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons With Disabilities.

But in some developing countries, the existing legal frameworks are not helping persons with a disability in the way the law intended, according to Queen’s Law PhD candidate and Mastercard Foundation Scholars Program participant Birhan Suadik.

“Employers do not want to make a huge investment to accommodate,” he says. “The main objective of the law was to provide protection for persons with a disability, but these policies actually inhibit their access to employment.”

Suadik’s research focuses on the factors affecting employability and workplace accommodation of persons with a disability, or disabilities, across Africa and, specifically, in his home country of Ethiopia. 

The issue first came to his attention during a taping of “Mizan Justice and Legal Awareness,” a radio program which aims to make the general public aware of their legal rights and responsibilities. For a few weeks, Suadik’s program focused on the legal rights and responsibilities enshrined under employment and labor law in Ethiopia. Listeners who called in told Suadik and his fellow lawyers that persons with a disability were often disadvantaged in their work opportunities and were disproportionately suffering from poverty due to unemployment.

Suadik’s aim is to examine the normative and legal frameworks around reasonable accommodation and the obligations of both employers and the state with a goal of eventually influencing government policy and law reform.

“The international standard is that the employer has the primary obligation to provide reasonable accommodation, and this has led to challenges when employers do not want to invest,” Suadik says. “So, my research will look at how the state could become more responsible for the accommodation of persons with a disability – whether it supports the cost of accommodation directly, or provides different supporting mechanisms to help persons with disabilities find suitable employment and maintain their job once they have it.”

Recently, Suadik received three Queen’s Centre for Law in the Contemporary Workplace research fellowships – The Baker McKenzie LLP Fellowship Award, The Adell Carter Fellowship, and The Goldblatt Partners LLP Award – to help support his research.

“I was very grateful to receive this funding, and I take it as an indication that my research topic is relevant both in academia and in the real world,” he says. “I look forward to connecting with the wider network and community engaged by the Centre, and using the fellowship money to make the necessary investment in my research.” 

After graduation, Suadik’s plan is to return to the University of Gondar in Ethiopia, where he is a professor, and resume his teaching and research while applying the skills and knowledge he has gained at Queen’s Law. The University of Gondar is a partner alongside Queen’s in the Mastercard Foundation Scholars Program.  

By Phil Gaudreau