Andrew
Disability Issues
Dr Christine Peta
THE 16 Days of Activism Against Gender-Based Violence (GBV) are commemorated from November December 25 to 10, under a global theme that is set by the United Nations (UN) secretary-general annually.
The campaign calls for an end to violence against women and girls. In Zimbabwe, our theme for this year was: “All lives matter: End gender-based violence now”.
I therefore assert that the lives of women and girls with disabilities matter too, hence I focus on the intersection of disability, femininity and GBV.
GBV against women has been defined as “any act that results in, or is likely to result in physical, sexual, or psychological harm or suffering to women, including threats of such acts, coercion or arbitrary deprivation of liberty, whether occurring in public or private life.”
The emergence of this definition from Beijing during the UN Women’s Conference in 1995 represents an international agreement on the manner in which GBV dynamics should be understood.
GBV is a worldwide challenge.
However, little research has been undertaken on GBV that targets women and girls with disabilities. Such a scenario shows society’s reluctance to recognise the reality that GBV against women and girls with disabilities occurs.
Disability does not shield women and girls from experiencing GBV. Instead, disability introduces an additional layer of vulnerability to GBV in the lives of women and girls. For instance, in the event of rape, blind women are unable to see the perpetrator while those than cannot speak are unable to scream for help.
Furthermore, research has indicated that most deaf women marry deaf men, who often have been as poorly prepared for the roles and responsibilities of adulthood as their wives have been.
As such, it is not uncommon for deaf women to experience GBV that is perpetrated against them by their deaf husbands. Silence is maintained around such GBV due in part to communication barriers between deaf and hearing persons.
Some women with disabilities are also targeted for rape by some HIV infected men on the basis of prescriptions from some unscrupulous traditional healers, that are grounded in the belief that sexual intimacy with a female virgin cleanses men of the virus.
Such a belief stems from the assumption that women with disabilities are asexual beings who are innocent of sexual thoughts, feelings and experiences.
As such, they are believed to be virgins and appropriate targets for the practice of “virgin cleansing” of HIV. The belief is that the virus is then transferred from the person who is infected to the woman with disabilities, in a scenario where her body is “valued” only for its use or consumption for such a purpose.
Some perpetrators of GBV may perceive the notion of being in an intimate relationship with a woman with disabilities as a chance to exploit and abuse her.
Some women with mental disabilities may be unable to realise that what they are experiencing is GBV, hence they may not seek assistance.
In addition, some women with disabilities who experience a delayed start to sexual experiences, are likely to believe that they do not have much of a choice but to accept abusive relationships.
However, those who survive GBV often suffer malignant penalties in the form of longstanding psychological, social, physical and economic effects. Disability may also cause some women to be at an increased risk of experiencing GBV in cases where they depend financially, emotionally or physically on the perpetrator.
However, the common practice in most African communities is that people seek to realise their rights within the communal space, instead of representing themselves as individuals.
Existing pronouncements on human rights are generally crafted along the lines that the body belongs to an individual, but the reality is that in some African contexts, bodies do not belong to the individual but they belong to the entire family and community, influenced at most by cultural ideologies.
A woman with disabilities may therefore not be able to report incidences of GBV to the police, if the family directs the woman to maintain silence on the issue.
Women with disabilities are often coerced into silently yielding to situations of GBV, so as to please family members who in some instances are both GBV perpetrators and bread winners.
Failure to talk openly about issues of GBV gives an upper hand to perpetrators who may end up not being exposed. Way forward Government of Zimbabwe is doing a lot to address issues of GBV. The country has signed a variety of regional and international conventions, protocols, declarations and treaties that are aimed at promoting and creating a conducive setting for the achievement of gender equality.
Nonetheless, there is a need to strengthen the mainstreaming of disability in all GBV interventions, thus paying attention to the needs and concerns of persons with disabilities including those of women with disabilities.
There is also a need to empower women with disabilities so that they may be able to identify and name GBV and extricate themselves from abusive locations, and ultimately be able to fend for themselves and their children.
In collaboration with other stakeholders that include the The Ministry of Women Affairs, Community, Small and Medium Enterprises Development and UN Agencies under the EU-UN Spotlight Initiative, the Department of Disability Affairs in the Ministry of Public Service, Labour and Social Welfare is working tirelessly to end GBV that is perpetrated against women with disabilities in all provinces in the country, thus seeking to leave no one and no place behind.
Dr Christine Peta is a Disability, Policy, International Development and Research expert who is the National Director of Disability Affairs in Zimbabwe – she can be contacted on: [email protected]
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