Disabled? Sorry We Can’t Afford it
Australia’s position on refugees and migrants with disabilities
The recent case of Sharaz Kayani and his family has highlighted the discriminatory nature of Australia’s migration policy.
A former Pakistani asylum seeker, now Australian citizen, Sharaz Kayani set himself alight outside Parliament House in Canberra as a protest at the rejection of his application to have his family join him in Australia.
Mr. Kayani came to Australia in 1996 as an asylum seeker fleeing persecution in Pakistan, where he feared for his family’s safety because of his friendship with members of Pakistan’s Ahmedi religious minority.
Two applications for his family to join him in Australia under the “split family” provisions of the humanitarian programme have been rejected on the ground that one of his daughters has a disability, cerebral palsy.
“The World Conference on Human Rights reaffirmed that all human rights and fundamental freedoms are universal and thus unreservedly include persons with disabilities. Every person is born equal and has the same rights to life and welfare, education and work, living independently and active participation in all aspects of society. Any direct discrimination or other negative discriminatory treatment of a disabled person is therefore a violation of his or her rights. The Conference called on Governments where necessary to adopt or adjust legislation to ensure access to these and other rights for disabled persons.”(1)
The Australian Disability Discrimination Act aims to ensure that people are not discriminated against on the grounds of disability. However, the Social Security Act and the Migration Act are exempt from incorporating these guidelines into their policies and practices. This exemption allows the government to legally discriminate against people with a disability who wish to migrate or seek asylum in the country. This is despite the Australian Government being signatory to many of the United Nations Conventions which all aim to provide protection for people with disabilities.
As part of its humanitarian programme, the Australian Department of Immigration and Multicultural Affairs has policies designed to reunite families where one or more family members have already migrated to Australia, and to provide asylum to those who need it.
However regardless of family relationship or individual circumstance applicants must also undergo comprehensive and stringent health checks to assess their suitability as migrants or asylum seekers. These regulations are designed in such a way that often, people with disabilities are rejected on health grounds. According to the Department of Immigration and Multicultural Affairs, these requirements ensure that risks to public health are minimised and that public expenditure on health and community services is contained.(2)
Any person wishing to enter Australia whether as a migrant or refugee seeking asylum must undergo an examination by a Medical Officer of the Commonwealth who carries out medical and radiological examinations.
These stringent tests categorise people according to their health status without taking into consideration many of the reasons why they seek to come to Australia. People are not seen within the context of their experience, and no attention is paid to the uniqueness and the contribution each one can make to a society. Instead they are judged on the grounds of cost and perceived burden on our health systems.
The Australian Government ensures that people continue to be discriminated against and have their human rights abused under the guise of protecting Australia. The Government is therefore failing in their humanitarian obligations to provide asylum to those who require it.
By continuing to be medicalised these people are treated as different from the norm, and therefore do not enjoy the same rights as others. They are divided into various diagnostic groups, in effect locating the disability “problem” within the individual. In this way the government is able to justify the discriminatory attitudes and structures within its policy. Refugees seeking asylum are particularly affected.
The reasons given to Mr. Kayani and others with disabilities seeking admission to Australia are based on cost and the perceived burden that an individual will place on society, rather than seeing them as people who have rights regardless of the labels placed by Government.
The Department of Immigration and Multicultural Affairs and the minister Phillip Ruddock have been quoted on various occasions as estimating that it will cost Australian taxpayers $750,000 (US$383,925) to provide the necessary care and medical treatment for Mr. Kayani’s 10-year-old daughter Annum who has cerebral palsy. But although Mr. Kayani has written the Australian government pledging not to expect “one cent” from the authorities for care for his daughter, this had no impact on his application, which has been pending since September 2000.(3)
This constant reference to the economic burden Annum will place on Australian society highlights the “implicit assumption that the (government believes) costs outweigh the benefits.”(4) This economic discourse does not acknowledge that people with disabilities have much to offer. The question is: does that implicit assumption apply also to people with disabilities who are Australian citizens? Will we be returning to the forced sterilisation of women with disabilities?
Among the numerous reasons why people seek asylum, it is impossible to ignore that many of them are fleeing their homelands as victims of war and violence or because of the threat of such. The nature of war leaves many persons severely maimed or injured. War remains a major cause of disability all over the world. It dislocates millions of people who then become refugees, the majority being women and children. In Cambodia alone there are 35,000 amputees who had been injured by landmines. Other countries where landmines are a daily threat are Afghanistan, Angola, Bosnia, Chechnya, Croatia, Iraq, Mozambique, Nicaragua, Somalia and dozens more.(5)
Once injured these disabled war victims enter the category of persons deemed too expensive to be given refuge by the Western countries, which profited from their injuries.(6) Through mechanisms such as health assessments, countries like Australia are able to render them invisible instead of giving them the compassion, care and assistance that they need.
The search for the “ideal citizen” has been going on in Australia for many years, starting with the attempts to wipe out the country’s Indigenous population. In the 1940s the Jewish refugees were not considered fit to be citizens for Australia because of the torture and trauma they had suffered.(7) After World War II, the “White Australia” policy that was used sought to select people who would be most fit for reproducing and be able to adapt to the cultures and norms of society. These practices are no longer in place but the Migration Act demonstrates the continuing prevalence of eugenics ideology that influenced earlier discriminatory practices.
Eugenics is a concept originated in 1880 by Francis Galton, a cousin of Charles Darwin, which encouraged the application of the natural selection principle of evolutionary theory to produce more ideal or improved populations.(8) The eugenics ideology is behind such practices as ethnic cleansing which attempt to wipe out entire races, and is thus directly responsible for the injuries, disabilities and dislocation suffered by many people who then need to seek asylum elsewhere.
Annum Kayani’s father was forced to flee his home due to the risk his religious beliefs posed on his family, only to have the Australian Government reject the girl for citizenship as her disability makes her a costly and undesirable applicant. It is clear that eugenics ideology is not only evident in extremist regimes carrying out genocide, it is also insidiously present in the policies and practices of democratic countries such as Australia.
Mr. Kayani’s shocking protest action in setting himself alight dramatically highlighted his frustration at a policy that clearly refuses to welcome people with disabilities. Whilst he has been given an opportunity by the Ombudsmen to make a new application, which he lodged in September 2000, no decision has been made. As long as the Australian Government continues to discriminate against those with disabilities, it is not likely that the Kayani family will be reunited very soon.
Footnotes:
1 Meekosha, H. (1999), “Disability and Human Rights,” conference paper presented at The Attorney General’s NGO Forum on Domestic Human Rights, Canberra, 11 March 1999.
2 Department of Immigration and Multicultural Affairs Fact Sheet – The Health requirement. Website: http://www.dima.gov.au/facts/22health.htm
3 Sydney Morning Herald, 5 April 2001.
4 Meekosha, H. (2000), “Changing Discourses of Disability and Human Rights in Australia,” conference paper presented at Transitions in Asia Pacific Societies conference of the Asia Pacific Sociological Association, 14-16 September 2000
5 International Campaign to Ban Landmines. Website: http://www.icbl.org
6 Dowse, L., Meekosha, H. (1997, “Enabling Citizenship: Gender, Disability and Citizenship in Australia,” Feminist Review No 57 (Autumn), p.59.
7 Jones, J. (2001), World Conference Against Racism, Canberra, May 2001
8 Perry, D. and Whiteside, R.K. (2000), “Women, Gender and ‘Disability’—Historical and Contemporary Intersections of ‘Otherness,’” conference paper presented at the Abilympics International Conference, September 1995.
Developing the Gender Dimension in India’s Disability Rights Movement
Disabled women’s rights! What rights are we talking about? Has the women’s movement in the world had any impact on this marginalised group of disabled women? Has the disability rights movement in the world made any difference in their lives? They are overprotected, discriminated against, exploited and marginalised. The rights movement of disabled women will require a lot of nurturing, support, positive discrimination, equal opportunities and then empowerment and leadership! It is a long way ahead.
Both disability and gender are physical constructs that totally ignore the person. To be a disabled man is to fail to measure up to the general culture’s definition of masculinity as strength, physical ability and autonomy. To be a disabled woman is to be considered unable to fulfil the role of homemaker, wife and mother, and unable to conform to the stereotype of beauty and femininity in terms of physical appearance. But yes, being a disabled woman fits well into the stereotype of passivity and dependency!
India is a vast country with a population of more than one billion and nearly 70 million people with disabilities. About 48 percent of them are women.
Women in India have been struggling to get their rights. The women’s rights movement itself is in its initial stages. They are fighting all the stereotypes that have been ingrained in the national psyche.
We glorify the Sati, the widow who jumps into the burning pyre of her husband, not because of love or devotion, but probably because she sees no hope without her male counterpart! We then build temples in her name and worship her for her devotion and courage!
Then there is the dowry system, a greed for material things, that makes us burn the wife if she fails to bring enough money with her in the marriage! And what exactly defines enough? The dowry system is so deep rooted that the girl is always seen as a liability, a burden! Even before the birth of a child, we go in for a gender test and get the female foetus aborted. We find innovative methods for female infanticide. In a household, the last priority is assigned to the education and even the proper nutrition of girls.
The Status of Girls With Disabilities
In a society where women have low status, one can imagine the reaction to the birth of a disabled girl child. A newborn with Spina Bifida was starved to death by her parents and family in Haryana despite the intensive counselling, support and medical assurances of an NGO and the doctors.
Infanticide of the disabled is widespread, with baby girls being at higher risk. The medical, nutritional, educational, emotional, psychological, sexual, recreational and employment needs of a disabled daughter are the last in the list of priorities of a family. She is also more vulnerable to physical and mental abuse. Being a woman, belonging to a poor family and having a disability, is a triple disadvantage that she has to withstand!
Let us now consider the quality of services available to a girl with disability in India. A research study was conducted in 1998 by the National Centre for Promotion of Employment for Disabled People (NCPEDP), gathering data mostly from non-governmental organisations providing services to people with disabilities.
The percentage of girls with disabilities going to school (38.34 percent) was found to be much lower than the percentage of boys with disabilities (61.66 percent) getting an education! In India, only 54.16 percent of all women are literate. With such a high rate of illiteracy among women in general, the chances of girls with disabilities of getting an education are extremely poor. Thus, many women with disabilities spend tedious hours employed in cottage industries, in work for which little education is necessary, whereas with a proper education they could be lawyers, administrators, etc. The NGOs themselves are not giving adequate attention to the issue.
Even when it comes to vocational training, the study showed that out of the 5,618 people with disabilities enrolled in vocational training in one year in the respondent NGOs, only 35.85 percent were women. It is probably because the traditional role of women is to be at home, looking after the household. It is not considered important to give them technical and professional training, and more so if they are disabled. Out of all the people with disabilities placed in jobs in two years, only one-fourth were women.
And because very few opportunities exist for the woman with disability for productive work or gainful employment, she is perceived as posing a greater burden for the family. With their enforced financial dependency, they form the most vulnerable group in the world.
In another finding, the research study showed that only 28.95 percent of girls get hostel facilities in the respondent NGOs. More than 70 percent of the beneficiaries of hostel facilities are men. Another startling finding was that out of the total number of beneficiaries who receive aids and appliances from these organisations, only 27.25 percent were females.
The problems that confront women with disabilities are even more severe in the rural areas. The inadequate or total lack of access to information, health care and rehabilitation services is further compounded by much higher illiteracy rates, longer distances to services and facilities, if they exist at all, and more severe conditions of poverty than in urban areas. In addition, traditions and prejudices that discriminate against women are more likely to be widely practised in the rural areas.
In a pilot project by Disabled Peoples International, Pakistan, a baseline survey was conducted of 500 households of a colony in Karachi in 1998 to identify the target group of women with disabilities whose status, socio-economic problems and community attitudes would be studied. Among the 20 women and girls with disabilities, 90 percent were illiterate, 90 percent had received no skills training, and not a single one had knowledge of any welfare organisation or agency. The family and the women themselves were not aware of the various sources of help in the community.
Why are services not reaching the girls and the women? Is it because parents do not approach the NGOs for the girl child? Is it because the NGOs are not giving adequate attention to the issue in a pro-active manner?
Unequal Participation in Decision-making
Decisions regarding the lives of women in India are generally taken by their fathers, brothers or sons. And again, it is more so for women with disabilities.
The National Centre for Promotion of Employment for Disabled People (NCPEDP) study shows that although women formed more than 50 percent of the professional workforce in the 119 apex-level NGOs, the percentage dropped to a mere 28.45 percent at the decision-making level. The data regarding women with disabilities is even more startling. Their percentage amongst professional staff was found to be as low as 4.47 percent! The figure dropped further to 3.71 percent when it came to their numbers in the decision-making bodies of these organisations!
Eunice Fiorito and Jim Doherty discuss this issue in detail in the book Women and Disability. According to them, the male bias, which pervades rehabilitation and vocational training schemes for people with disabilities, is also clearly reflected in male domination of decision-making in rehabilitation organisations. Women who choose rehabilitation as a professional field, somewhere along the line, become abruptly conscious of this situation once they reach a certain level in the hierarchy. They often join as volunteers and are very soon told how good they are with their clients. As a result, women tend to be concentrated in low and mid-level positions.
The rehabilitation system is deprived of the rich experience women have in this area, as they are not allowed a fair share in programme direction and leadership. If it is valid to say that women are especially effective in working with people, then the system loses a great deal when the ability is confined to lower levels.
Women with disabilities—are discriminated against not only by men—whether disabled or not, but also by non-disabled women themselves, and even in the disability sector itself. It is this power equation that needs to be changed.
Changing the Power Equation
We now consider disability as a development issue. As Peter Coleridge mentions, disability is a development issue because it dehumanises. It dehumanises because, on the practical level, disabled people are left out of development planning and their voice is not heard in decision-making circles. On the philosophical level we know instinctively that if we deny the humanity of another, we ourselves are dehumanised.
So when we talk of empowerment, we are talking of a change in power relationships from which everyone ultimately benefits, the disabled and non-disabled women and men. There is not much point in empowerment if it means that the oppressed become the new oppressors.
The Disability Rights Movement in India
The disability rights movement in India started only in the early 1990s. The launch of the Asian and Pacific Decade of Disabled Persons in 1993 gave a definite boost to the movement. In that year, the Indian government organised a national seminar in New Delhi to discuss the various issues concerning the disabled citizens. The main need that emerged from the seminar was for a comprehensive legislation to protect the rights of persons with disabilities. However, it was only after intense lobbying of the Disabled Rights Group (DRG) that the crucial legislation was passed in 1995. In a single day, both Houses of Parliament passed the Persons with Disabilities (Equal Opportunities, Protection of Rights and Full Participation) Act. This was a landmark in the disability movement in India.
The DRG was a group of like-minded people, mainly persons with disabilities, who came together in 1994. They included Mrs. Anuradha Mohit, a woman with visual impairment, who went on to become the first woman Deputy Chief Commissioner for Persons with Disabilities in the country. Probably for the first time in India, persons having different disabilities joined hands to fight for a larger cause, ignoring their individual differences. It was the beginning of a movement that was to change the course of the lives of 70 million disabled citizens!
Disabled Women Activists: a Few Exceptions
In 1997, NCPEDP organised the National Advocacy Workshop on Speedy and Effective Implementation of the Disability Act. This workshop in New Delhi led to several similar events being organised by other NGOs at the State level. The most heartening development in India was the emergence of several advocacy and self-help groups in different parts of the country, led by people with disabilities. A few women leaders with disabilities had started emerging.
The movement was further strengthened when NCPEDP launched Disability 2000, a national campaign in which it collaborated with disability rights organisations, advocacy groups and local governments and formed the National Disability Network. In each of the 32 States and Union Territories, a partner was identified, who would work together on various disability rights issues affecting the nation.
The national disability network saw the emergence of various women with disabilities as leaders like Jayshree Raveendran, Meenu Bhambhani and Sruti Mohapatra. Meenu Bhambhani has now become the Deputy Commissioner for Disabled People in the State of Rajasthan.
The reactivation of Disabled Peoples International in October 2000 also saw the active participation of disabled women from all over the country. Four of the eleven members of its Executive Committee elected in the National Assembly were women.
Moving Forward
The disability rights movement is very strongly supported by mothers of children with disabilities and by female professionals. However, this is just the beginning. Much more is needed.
Women with disabilities need to be more proactively involved. Organisations working on women’s issues can play a major role in taking the disability movement forward.
Much however, depends on how soon organisations realise the immense potential in the strength of women with disabilities and their capabilities in taking the disability rights movement of the country forward. What is needed is introspection, education, awareness, and more and more role models to break the barriers of attitudes and stereotypes.
Breakdown of Tribal Culture Further Marginalises Women With Disabilities
The Chief Magistrate sitting at the Nairobi High Court did not hesitate to
point out that the act of sexually assaulting a physically challenged woman
was beastly, despite the victim having attained the statutory age of consent.
In the dock was Francis Macharia, 52, a mathematics teacher accused of abusing his mentally retarded 19-year-old daughter.
This case which came up late March this year failed to attract much attention in the local media apparently because of the sheer number of incidents where the victims are physically challenged women.
“It shocks no one today. The society has heard so much about men abusing physically disabled women, to the extent that more and more people are having the courage to confront the perpetrators,” says Agnes Mutiso, co-chair of the African Network for the Prevention and Protection Against Child Abuse (ANPPCAN).
However the discrimination suffered by women with disabilities goes beyond physical mistreatment.
Lucy Kimani is an example. Upon completion of her undergraduate studies at the University of Nairobi she was refused a job as a journalist with the Nation Media Group, arguably the biggest news organisation in the East and Central African region. Her crime: she had been reduced to using a wheelchair after polio left her paralysed from the waist down.
“They told me that despite my educational qualifications they could not give me a job as a journalist. They did not tell me why they had ruled me out but I guessed it was because I was on a wheelchair,” explains Kimani, 32, who today ekes out a living as a freelance journalist.
Since Kenya became independent in 1963, successive administrations have always passed over the plight of people with disabilities in the country. No special schools exist apart from two that had been put up by the British colonial authorities.
One of them is Nile Road Special School, located 50 kilometres east of Nairobi. With a population of 750 students, the institution is perennially seeking financial assistance from potential sponsors.
“The school is in dire need of assistance. We cannot cope with the number of students seeking admittance. Our annual budget always has had to be cushioned by international assistance,” explains Jennifer Owang, the school principal.
Indeed, people with disabilities in Kenya find themselves further pushed into a corner by the country’s severe economic problems.
In 1987 President Daniel arap Moi ostensibly reached out to the marginalised groups by declaring the year to be specially dedicated to the disabled. He directed the raising of funds for them, and a total of US$32,000 was collected. Unfortunately the money was salted away by cronies of the president. Since then, the issue has conveniently been forgotten.
Kenya’s finances are in a shabby state. With an external debt of US$7.5 billion and an internal debt amounting to US$2.5 billion, the government spends a massive US$ 0.8 billion annually on debt repayment. This is more than what the Moi administration spends to provide for education and health services combined, which add up to US$0.7 billion annually. Kenya remains highly dependent on financial aid from abroad, which alone makes up around 16 percent of the gross national product.
Not surprisingly, people with disabilities are left to fend for themselves—which means that one’s personal resources determine the destiny of a person in such a situation.
And because Kenya is a patriarchal society, women with disabilities are particularly disadvantaged. Their concerns receive scant attention. At best, the issues are conveniently subsumed in an amorphous class cavalierly referred as “the marginalised groups.” And because women with disabilities have not been able to come together as a lobby, there is as yet no effort to campaign on a platform of reforms detailing their particular needs.
Since they are hardly regarded as a group in need of an environment that takes care of their needs, it is often taken for granted that most women with disabilities are comfortable at home rather than at the workplace.
But it is at home where they are likely to be sexually abused. Rarely do such cases come out into the open. Families keep quiet because of the shame, and are usually intimidated by threats of violence if anybody dares to report to the authorities.
A good case is the trial of Francis Macharia.
“He threatened to kill me when I said that I would blow the whistle on him. He begged me to forgive him and promised to stop having sex with our daughter. I believed him at first, but one day I discovered him in the act and I said enough was enough. I called in the police, who insisted that I grease their palm first if I was to count on their help,” Macharia’s wife Mary Wairimu, 42, told the hearing. She has eight children.
Tellingly, the police tend to blame Wairimu. “We believe that she earns her living as an urban prostitute,” said Patrick Kiarie, the police inspector prosecuting the case, declaring: “Not that we have anything against her preferred trade but it’s her visibility as a lush individual that is annoying.” Like many jobless women in the inner parts of the city where life is hard and mean, she has already spent time in jail several times, according to the police.
As the Chief Magistrate adjudged Macharia guilty of the crime of sexual abuse, subsequently sentencing him to 10 years in jail without the option of a bond, his daughter sat on a wooden bench inside the courtroom, with a detachment that was simply moving.
The situation of women with disabilities has further worsened with the erosion of tribal mores that used to bind Kenyan society together. A perverse culture originating from the West, worshipping Mammon and preaching the gospel of individualism, without a gender dimension, throttles the women sector as a whole and relegates it to the fringes of national politics.
“If our tribal mores were still intact, people with disabilities, particularly women, would find a trustworthy social cushion. But with capitalism eating into our culture we have to think of new ways of assisting our people,” according to Dr Ojwang Oturi of the University of Nairobi’s Sociology Department.
Despite President Moi’s repeated utterances that his administration is sensitive to the needs of marginalised groups, amongst them women with physical disabilities, his government has refused to back an Affirmative Bill that aims to empower these groups. Those lobbying for women’s interests in particular are branded as at best charlatans, servilely attached to foreign ideology. He himself has generally dismissed women as “small-minded midgets” who should not be taken seriously. He has also underscored the need for women to rally behind the menfolk in nation building.
Significantly, there are only two women legislators in his government, out of 150 parliamentarians.
The apathy towards women with physical disabilities is further entrenched by the fact that no data has been gathered on even just their percentage in the population of women with disabilities. “We have a situation where the government sees nothing special or serious about their concerns. What matters to the government is how the women react come the national elections,” comments Jane Kiragu, executive director of the Federation of Women Lawyers (FIDA) of Kenya.
“The government has not yet identified women with disabilities as a group in need of special treatment. For now the gender issue is focused on getting more women into the mainstream irrespective of their physical status,” according to Onesmus Githinji, Undersecretary in the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Social Services which handles all issues related to gender.
Girls and Women With Disabilities Speak Out
Disabled women are the most marginalised group in the whole world. There
are more than 250 million of them today, with approximately 75 percent
living in the so-called developing countries. Although they constitute a very large population, international development programmes rarely address the needs of disabled women or include them in community development ventures.
Of course, all persons with disabilities, whether male or female, have issues in common which affect them equally. Mostly, these concern the barriers in our environment like the lack of access to buildings and public transport, for example, or to bathroom facilities in public buildings, the lack of technical assistance and rehabilitation programmes, accessible information, the unavailability of sign-language interpreters and publications printed in braille, etc.
But women with disabilities have other important concerns besides these. These issues have to do with education, employment, achieving a self-determined lifestyle, violence, and the subject of euthanasia, eugenics and bioethics.
Education
Generally, the percentage of literacy amongst women is lower than amongst men in most countries. Women with disabilities have the lowest literacy rates of all, thus creating high unemployment and economic dependency. Many girls with disabilities are confronted with the traditional belief that girls do not have to learn so much because they will marry anyway and will have to look after a family; or, they will never marry anyway and therefore they do not need so much education.
It is a well known fact that often, these girls cannot count on getting married, that they have to rely on their own abilities to support themselves. This means that a good education is even more important for them. But even in the so-called industrialised countries, it is difficult for girls with disabilities to get training in as many professions as non-disabled girls. And in the so-called third world countries, such girls are often excluded from education, even from basic education, because of the gender aspect. The general opinion is that, it is important for boys, boys with disabilities, to get an education, but little thought is given to girls in the same situation. This is especially so in the rural areas.
During the last decade, many programmes have been developed to support special educational and professional training courses for girls and women with disabilities who are deaf, blind and learning impaired. But this is not enough. We need good education for all.
Employment
Getting a job is more difficult for women with disabilities than men with disabilities. This can be traced to the cultural attitude that it is more important for men to have a job. But this is not true. It is equally important for women to have a job and an income of their own, to support themselves and their children.
Some development agencies and the World Bank, for one, are giving micro-credits to train disabled girls and women to have their own income-generating project. We need far more programmes here, too.
Self-determined lifestyle
Severely disabled girls and women are often completely dependent on the help of others for their daily life. This dependency can create too much dependency on persons, mostly in the family, and restrict the woman in her activities. It can also lead to violence against girls and women with disabilities. But most certainly dependency leads to low self-esteem and feelings of guilt.
We have to undertake advocacy and lobbying campaigns to popularise the importance of active support in the daily lives of women with disabilities. Instead of depending only on their families to help them, it would be preferable if the authorities could assign persons who will help them get out of bed, wash, dress, take their meals, go to school, take training courses, go to work, etc.
Violence
Statistics tell us that girls and women with disabilities are more likely to be sexually abused than those who are not. But this issue is a big taboo among the women themselves and in society. It is important to talk about violence, and not to be ashamed, because we cannot fight it unless we do so. We have to make it public, we have to inform people who might be able to help us. We should convince governments and non-governmental organisations to provide programmes to avoid violence and to provide shelter-homes so that girls and women with disabilities can escape the violence at home or in an institution and start a new life.
Euthanasia, Eugenics and Bioethics
Most women with disabilities believe that these issues do not concern them. But in reality it is them who suffer the most. First of all, when we talk about euthanasia, we deny that it exists. Women with disabilities, those who are elderly and chronically ill, are made to believe by their environment that they are a burden to their families and to society. That their life is useless. Because they are disabled, they are ill, they are old, they have pains, it is suggested to them that it would be better to die. This happens more commonly to the women than to the men, because disabled men have families (often an “abled” wife) to care for them. We demand palliative care and services for these women to ensure a better quality of life.
Concerning eugenics, many women with disabilities are denied the right to have children out of fear that their children might be disabled as well. We are against forced sterilisation or abortion. We are against selecting the so-called abnormal foetuses (a woman should have the right to choose whether she wants to have the baby or not) and we are against infanticide on the ground of impairment. We demand that all children be welcomed into the world and provided with appropriate levels of social, practical and financial support.
Information on bioethics has been made available to many women with disabilities in the last few years, especially in Europe. We demand that the use of new genetic discoveries, techniques and practices be strictly regulated to avoid discrimination and to protect fully, and in all circumstances, the human rights of disabled people.
For this article I only want to highlight very briefly the most pressing issues concerning girls and women with disabilities. I must add, however, that in many countries, the isolation and confinement of such girls and women, based on culture and traditions, create even bigger problems. This is another tragic form of discrimination.
DPI Women’s Committee
Disabled Peoples International (DPI) is a human rights organisation working closely together with the United Nations. It co-operated with the UN in preparing the Standard Rules on the Equalisation of Opportunities for Disabled Persons, adopted by the UN General Assembly in 1993.
The Standard Rules are an instrument with which we can pressure governments to improve the situation of girls and women with disabilities in many countries. Their purpose is “to ensure that girls, boys, women and men with disabilities, as members of their societies, may exercise the same rights and obligations as others.” Furthermore, “special attention may need to be directed towards groups such as women, children, the elderly, the poor, migrant workers, or persons with dual or multiple disabilities, indigenous people and ethnic minorities.”
The DPI Women’s Committee wants to raise awareness about the facts and issues I have mentioned. It is the committee’s mandate, among others, to raise international awareness of the issues affecting women with disabilities, including human rights violations.
Other instruments we can use to improve the situation are the final documents of the Platform of Action of the Beijing Conference in 1995 and the final documents of the Beijing +5 conference held in New York in 2000. These documents mention women with disabilities several times with regard to education, employment, health and violence. (Let me tell you that it was hard work to convince the participants in these conferences of the necessity to mention women with disabilities especially.)
We need strong networks on all levels, to exchange information and to support each other. In DPI, for example, the DPI Women’s Committee is subdivided into five regions. Each region has its own networks on the local, national and regional levels. Some of the women’s networks are getting stronger and are working very well. In Europe, for example, there is a programme financed by the European Union (EU) to counter violence against women with disabilities. On 16-18 November this year we will have a regional conference that will tackle the topic of violence against disabled women and girls, to be held in Italy. A booklet on this subject is also being prepared for publication. For its part, the Pan-African Women’s Committee is organising a big conference of women with disabilities in early 2002 in Mauritius.
We need good programmes to train and empower women with disabilities all over the world. We need good legal instruments in all countries to protect the human rights of people with disabilities with special mention of the issues concerning women with disabilities. Let us work and fight together to make this world a better place for all.
Dinah Radtke is chair of the Disabled Peoples’ International Women’s Committee.
Sources:
The Women´s Kit of the Women´s Committee, Disabled Peoples International, Winnipeg (Canada), November 1994.
Beyond Beijing: A Guide to Equality for Women with Disabilities by the Year 2000, DPI, Winnipeg, 1995.
Manifesto of the Disabled Women in Europe, European Disability Forum, Brüssels, 1997.
Disabled People Speak on the New Genetics, DPI Europe Position Statement on Bioethics and Human Rights, London, 2001
For information please write to:
Disabled Peoples´ International
101-7 Evergreen Place
Winnipeg, Manitoba
Canada R3L 2T3
E-mail: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Tel.: (1-204)287-8010
Fax: (1-204)453-1367
TDD: (1-204)284-2598
Website: http://www.dpi.org
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Isis Resource Center holds one of the largest feminist collections of materials in the Global South. With 40 years of publication experience, Isis holds a vast collection.