Africans rising
The abilities of women with disabilities
Women with disabilities face double discrimination, stigma and marginalisation but they are also at the forefront of change, writes Chitra Nagarajan.
Published
8 years agoon

Asexual. Hyper-sexual. Unattractive. Infertile. Useless. Unemployable. Stupid. Abnormal. Defective. Not good wife material. Suffering innocent. Burden to carry. The will of God.
These were some of the words used by participants at the 13th international forum organised by the Association for Women’s Rights in Development in Bahia, Brazil, to describe common stereotypes of people with disabilities. The forum brought together feminist activists around the world. Disability was a key theme, with a dedicated disability rights space and sessions organised by women with disabilities to highlight issues, including the Zika virus, sexuality and leadership.
The world’s largest minority
People with disabilities constitute a significant proportion of our communities, making up 15% or 1 billion of the global population. This percentage increases among poor populations: An estimated 20% of the ‘poorest of the poor’ and approximately 30% of street children have a disability.
Although all people with disabilities face marginalisation and stigma, women and men have very different experiences.
This is not surprising, considering that poverty and disability are a cause and a consequence of each other. Poor people are less able to afford medical treatment and so are more likely to become disabled by disease, illness and injury. At the same time, people with disabilities often do not go to school and cannot find paid work, leading to poverty.
The number of people with disabilities also increases in times of violent conflict. For every child killed due to armed violence, 100 children are left with permanent, life-long disabilities. Serious trauma can lead to permanent psychosocial disabilities if untreated and post-traumatic stress disorder is the second leading cause of disability in post-conflict countries.
People with disabilities face oppression, pervasive stereotypes and misconceptions that worsen their lives. Across the African continent, people with albinism continue to be discriminated against, tortured and murdered. Stigma around mental health, learning difficulties and depression is so strong that these issues are rarely even discussed, let alone understood.
Double discrimination
Although all people with disabilities are marginalised, women and men have very different experiences. Indeed, women and girls are more likely to have a disability in the first place due to neglect in health care, poor working conditions or gender-based violence. Three quarters of people with disabilities in low- and middle-income countries are women. They face double discrimination due to their gender and disability. They can find it more difficult to have relationships and get married, as they are not seen as able to fulfil the traditional wifely roles of doing the housework, having sex, bearing children and caring for families. They are twice as unlikely to find work, with 75% worldwide being excluded from the workforce. Girls with disabilities are less likely to be able to go to school and, in many cases, they drop out when they start menstruating as there is no help at school to deal with their periods.

South African actress Andrea Dondolo on Table Mountain in Cape Town, as part of One Billion rising, to call for an end to violence against women and girls. Photo: Lindsay Mgbor/Department for International Development/ Wikimedia commons
Women and girls with disabilities are more likely to experience gender-based violence, but they are less likely to seek help, be believed or find services accessible. This is according to ‘What Violence Means to Us: Women with Disabilities Speak’, a study I helped conduct last year in Nigeria. Researchers heard stories of male students watching visually impaired female students bathing; of hearing-impaired girls going to fetch water and not hearing their attackers approaching; of women with intellectual disabilities being raped by neighbourhood men climbing in through their bedroom window. Women with disabilities in camps for internally displaced people (IDPs) also spoke of being approached by men offering help to access food and relief materials in exchange for sex.
Women with disabilities fighting against discrimination and violence
We must be careful, however, not to view women with disabilities as helpless victims. Across the world, they are taking action to improve their lives, their families and their communities and to transform society.
A number of these trailblazing women were at the AWID Forum. Pratibha Gurung talked of her work with indigenous women with disabilities in earthquake-affected areas in Nepal. An Indonesian activist talked about working with legal aid and electoral organisations to ensure that people with psychosocial disabilities were registered to vote in elections. The excellent website sexualityanddisability.org, set up and run by feminist disability rights activists, not only provides advice but counters the myth that people with disabilities are asexual, showing them as sexual beings like anyone else.
We must be careful not to view women with disabilities as helpless victims. Across the world, they are taking action to improve their lives, their families and their communities and to transform society.
Closer to home, the women with disabilities I have worked with include Grace Jerry of Inclusive Friends and Risikat Mohammed of the Women with Disability Self-Reliance Centre. They run peace clubs for children and young people. They seek justice and services for women and girls who have experienced violence. They advocate to make government programmes for youth employment and empowerment more accessible and inclusive. Like so many others, they work to build a more inclusive, just and peaceful Nigeria.
Women with disabilities are not charity cases or objects of pity. They are at the forefront of changing society – a fact that should be acknowledged and supported.
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