News
‘Women and Girls with Disabilities Must Have a Voice’
Play audio version
Global Disability Summit 2022 Speakers Commit to Inclusion, Access, and Participation
March 29, 2022
At the Global Disability Summit’s “Spotlight on Gender” session, Elizabeth Kanjiwa, a youth leader with visual impairments from Family Planning Association Malawi (FPAM) and International Planned Parenthood Federation (IPPF), explained why she is enthusiastic about her work as a peer educator: “My passion is to save many girls from unplanned pregnancy that can lead them to drop out of school and forced marriage and no control over their lives,” Kanjiwa said.
The second Global Disability Summit was held on February 16 and 17, 2022. Hosted by the International Disability Alliance (IDA) and the Norwegian and Ghanaian governments, the summit was held virtually to ensure inclusive participation due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The first Global Disability Summit (GDS18) was held in 2018 and was hosted by the Kenyan government, the former UK Department for International Development (DFID), and the International Disability Alliance (IDA).
In this year’s “Spotlight on Gender” session, Kanjiwa said that Malawian girls in Mtande Village, TA Chimutu in Lilongwe do not have knowledge about safe sex and do not know where to access contraceptive services. Girls with disabilities find it difficult to access sexual and reproductive health and rights (srhr) services due to long travel distances to health centers. Girls with disabilities, especially those who are Deaf or hard of hearing or blind or have low vision, also encounter difficulties communicating with health workers and accessing radio and television public service announcements on srhr. Additionally, Kanjiwa mentioned how some health workers are not hospitable.
“The first time I went to a clinic in 2012, I was sent back, just because I did not come with my guardian. I felt ignored, but now they are friendlier than before. Many of them have received training from FPAM on youth-friendly and disability-inclusive services,” Kanjiwa said.
According to Dr. Bärbel Kofler, another “Spotlight on Gender” speaker and Parliamentary State Secretary to Germany’s Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development, women and girls with disabilities are often at a double disadvantage because they are female and have a disability. “In low-income countries, three-quarters of all the people with disabilities are female. In these countries, almost one in every four women, 22 percent, is living with one or more than one disability. The consequences are disastrous,” Kofler said.
Dr. Kofler stated that women and girls with disabilities are between three to ten times more likely to experience gender-based violence than those without disabilities. “Women and girls with disabilities must have a voice,” she said. “Only then will they be able to fully participate in social, economic, and political life.”
According to the United Nations Population Fund, girls and women with disabilities are not only more likely to experience gender-based violence but are less likely to access sexual and reproductive health and rights services and information like menstrual hygiene, family planning, and comprehensive sex education.
Dr. Natalia Kanem, a third speaker and executive director of the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), said, “UNFPA will work in partnership … to ensure women and girls with disabilities are fully seen and counted. Let us recognize their rights, respect their choices, acknowledge their beauty and brilliance and support their every hope and aspiration.”
Honorable Nyeleti Brooke Mondlane, Mozambique Minister of Gender, Children, and Social Action and a fourth speaker at the summit session, also reaffirmed Mozambique’s commitment to materializing goals, including the UN Sustainable Development Goals, which focus on leaving no one, including persons with disabilities, behind.
The next Global Disability Summit will occur in 2025. The German and Jordanian governments will be its hosts. In her speech, Kanjiwa recommended that the voices of people with disabilities be included in various high-profile meetings like the Global Disability Summit, where decisions are made. so that there is “nothing about us without us.”
Esther Suubi is a fellow with the Disability Justice Project and a peer educator with Triumph Mental Health Support. @2022 TRIUMPH Uganda. All rights reserved.
News From the Global Frontlines of Disability Justice
‘I Wish to Live a Normal Life’
Rwandan parents of children with intellectual disabilities often face an agonizing choice: working outside the home or caring for their children. Either option can spiral a family into poverty or keep them there. “I become speechless when it is about discrimination faced by parents who have children with intellectual disability,” says Pacifique Uwizeyimana, mother to 8-year-old Samuel.
‘A View From Somewhere’
DJP staff, partners, and fellows reflect on two years of “taking back the narrative” on disability. “Through the DJP, I was able to advance my advocacy level … for women with disabilities, most especially people with DeafBlindness,” says disability rights activist Oluwabukolami Omolara Badmus, an inaugural DJP fellow from Nigeria.
I Voted
DJP Fellow Benedicta Oyèdayọ̀ Oyèwọlé chronicles the challenges she and other Nigerians with disabilities faced voting in her country’s February elections, from faraway polling places to no assistive materials like magnifying glasses. She urges more inclusion in the House of Assembly and gubernatorial elections on March 18.
More Than A Name
Lidia Lebang, a mental health advocate and author, says she is more than her name: “I am a woman – a gender often seen in Indonesia’s patriarchal society as a second, or inferior, gender. I come from a working-class family. I live with bipolar disorder, which makes me a person with a disability. These are parts of my identity that make me who I am now.”
Toward Equitable Health Care
Rwandans with disabilities face significant barriers to accessing health care. For those with short stature, this includes hospital beds and reception windows that are too high. “Sometimes we are served after others or choose to stay home,” says one advocate for more inclusive services and infrastructure.
‘I Never Imagined I Could Do This’
Dissatisfied by the way local news portrays people with disabilities, DJP Fellow Sri Sukarni is determined to use her new video skills to share issues important to her community. At the top of her agenda is the lack of accessible public service buildings. “This is what I want to convey to the media, to the government,” she says.