“The discrimination started from family members and friends,” said SM. “I asked myself whether the myth around disability could be that bad?”
SM said she and her daughter faced similar challenges such as discrimination and stigmatisation. “The fact that she is a girl with a disability makes her even more vulnerable. As a mother, I feel insecure about leaving her behind with any male figure. I sacrifice a lot in my day-to-day life, including marriage, a career and money, said SM.
Throughout the world disabled women and girls face the same issues, though the challenges are often more pronounced in Africa. So, recognising this aspect of African society, a group of disabled women came together in 2002 to form Disabled Women in Africa (DIWA), an organisation that works to ensure women and girls with disabilities enjoy their rights. They try to change destinies and free people any gender and disability based discrimination.
“DIWA was formed specifically to deal with some of the problems faced by disabled women, such as health challenges and lack of strong representation in both local and regional disability organisations. The aim of the organisation is also to lobby and advocate for legislation, policies and practice that promote the interest and inclusion of women with disabilities in Africa,” said Xoliso Msebele, DIWA’s coordinator in an interview with The Zimbabwean.
South African disability activist Maria Rantho was one of the founders of the organisation but died a year after its formation. Since 2009, Msebele said DIWA had been focusing mainly on building the capacity of women and their structures, on lobbying and on promoting gender and mainstreaming disability.
DIWA, alongside other regional women’s disability organisations under the auspices of the Pan-African Disability Movement, has come up with a policy demand document. It calls on the African Union, African regional bodies, the African national government development agencies, service providers and civil society to take immediate action to protect women with disabilities and to guarantee their right to life.
DIWA is also calling for the investigation of the causes of all forms of violence against women with disabilities and is specifically looking at the needs of older women, widows, albino women and women in conflict areas.
DIWA has also developed a handbook on gender and disability mainstreaming as well as a lobbying manual.
“Mainstreaming is necessary in order to achieve equality,” said Msebele. “Empowering and supporting women and people with disabilities is necessary but it will never succeed in creating equality as long as society refuses to take their needs into account. To achieve equality, the mainstream must be altered so that women and men with disabilities can swim in it like all others.”
Post published in: News