Women with Disabilities
Background
In Kenya, women with disabilities face a lot of barriers maintaining good health, including the right to sexual and reproductive health. Women Challenged to Challenge is an organization of women with different types of disabilities, and the organization works to improve the sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR) of these people in Kenya. The aim of the organization is to give a voice to girls and women with disabilities.
The goal of this lecture is to teach what kind of challenges women and girls with disabilities face in Kenya, and what kind of improvements there have been during the last years.
Prevalence of disabilities in Kenya
To be able to understand the Kenyan context, it is essential to know the number of people living with disabilities. In total, the prevalence of disabilities was 4.6% according to the government of Kenya in 2008. However, The World Health Organization estimated the number to be as high as 15.2% in Kenya in years 2002 and 2004. The difference in these numbers can be partly explained by the fact that low-income countries tend to underreport the number of people living with disabilities. New studies about the prevalence of disabilities should be made to be able to follow-up the trends.
According to the Kenyan government, the most common disabilities were physical disabilities with the prevalence of 1.6%, and visual disabilities with the prevalence of 1.4%. One factor contributing to physical disabilities is the high number of road accidents. Other disabilities were hearing impairment, disabled self-care, mental disability, speech and other difficulties with communication, as well as other disabilities.
It is important to use a questionnaire pattern to get reliable results about the prevalence of disabilities. If the questions are not accurate, people tend to underreport the number of family members with disabilities. The survey about the prevalence of disabilities in Kenya in 2008 was made with the Washington Group Short Set of questions.
Barriers of women with disabilities
In Kenya women have less capacity to speak for themselves in comparison to men, and women with disabilities have even less capacity than other women. Beside this, disabled persons are commonly discriminated against in society. Barriers girls and women with disabilities encounter when accessing services can be divided into three groups:
1. societal, environmental and communicational,
2. intersectionality of disability and
3. lack of consultation.
The first group of barriers - social, environmental and communicational barriers - refers to a wide type of barriers. Social barriers mean that the women are seen and treated differently only because of their disability. For example, in health services the disabled cannot make decisions regarding their own health, and a family member might be consulted instead. Environmental barriers mean that the services are not accessible in practice. For example, many times mobile health clinics are not accessible to persons with physical disabilities. Communicational barriers refer to poor communication between the service giver and receiver. As an example, if there is no sign language interpreter in health services, a deaf patient may lack essential information regarding treatment.
The second barrier that women with disabilities face is intersectionality of disability. This means that a person is discriminated against due to her gender and disability. This type of discrimination brings inequalities to the service provision of SRHR, and puts these girls and women in risk of sexual violence. For example, if a disabled girl or woman is raped, the case is hardly ever solved in court. Rather, the case is handled with small gifts or money between the families. Also, if the case is handled in court, the girl or woman hardly ever gets justice due to a discriminative penal code. In the most severe cases in Kenya disabled women have been raped and killed, and the felon was never convicted.
The last barrier is lack of consultation. This means that in service or project planning the disabled persons are not consulted, or their opinions are not taken into account. In some cases, this means that services directed to this group are not accessible to them in practice.
Women with disabilities, family planning and sexual health
The sexual and reproductive health of girls and women with disabilities is a difficult theme in Kenyan society and there are a lot of myths about it. Many times, girls and women with disabilities are not seen as capable of making decisions regarding their own sexual and reproductive health, and for this reason the decisions are made for them without consulting their opinion. In some cases, family members are asking for unnecessary treatments, like removing the uterus to prevent menstruation, and the local doctors do these procedures in order to ease everyday life of the family. Another typical assumption is that girls and women with disabilities are not capable of making decisions regarding relationships. For this reason children of disabled women are seen as a result of rape.
In terms of using pregnancy prevention, an injection is the most common prevention method of girls and women with disabilities. Injection has advantages for the service giver, as it can be given rapidly without any explanation and its effects last long. Sterilization is another common pregnancy prevention method and it is often performed in conjunction with other treatments. The government officially approves 4% of women and girls with disabilities for sterilization. However, the number can be as high as 19%. Mostly, girls and women getting injected and sterilized are not consulted, and for that reason using these methods can be seen as breaking their rights.
Other prevention methods than injection and sterilization are the condom, the prevention pill, periodic abstinence and traditional methods.
Achievements of Women Challenged to Challenge
Women Challenged to Challenge aims to improve the sexual and reproductive health and rights of women and girls with disabilities on matters, which affect their daily lives. The organization works with advocacy on policies on SRHR, economic empowerment, capacity building, provides a forum for girls and women with disabilities, and does research. The work must be done in cooperation and it should be based on evidence to get sustainable results.
There have been many positive policy changes in recent years regarding the rights of girls and women with disabilities. The government of Kenya ratified the Convention of Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) in 2008, which includes chapters about protection of women with disabilities. The Constitution of Kenya has prohibited discrimination based on disability since 2010. In addition, Kenya has the Sexual Offence Act from 2006, Children’s Act from 2001, Disability Act from 2003, Disability policy, National reproductive health policy and National Adolescent reproductive health policy, which all have protective or supportive chapters regarding disabled persons. Women Challenged to Challenge has contributed to all of these achievements. Despite all this, disability must be mainstreamed in Kenya’s laws in upcoming years to ensure the rights of disabled girls and women.
Beside this, influencing the community is essential, as in practice, the rights of disabled girls and women do not get fulfilled and they are discriminated against in many situations, including health services. Women Challenged to Challenge has done advocacy to change the attitudes of officials, provided training for police, nurses and other central officials on the basics of sign language, and increased knowledge among the community. Other civil societies have become more supportive towards girls and women with disabilities. Women Challenged to Challenge uses a multisectoral approach, meaning that different professionals come together to increase the understanding of disabilities and the needs of disabled persons.
Due to a lack of information, it is important to educate girls and women about their sexual and reproductive health and rights. The information provided must be available to them, meaning that the written information should be available in braille, and audio information in sign language. Women Challenged to Challenge also provides a forum where women can share experiences and challenges. Also, Women Challenged to Challenge provides information on how to reach services, including economic accessibility. Education is essential so that girls and women can demand their rights.
Conclusions
Even though the number of people living with disabilities is high in Kenya these people are still discriminated against. The rights of people with disabilities have improved in many ways during the recent decade, but practises and attitudes change slowly. The Kenyan government must take more actions to improve the rights of disabled persons, and needs to implement laws faster. Participating in international meetings can be beneficial for this work.
The work of Women Challenged to Challenge must continue. In the future Women Challenged to Challenge aims to reach new areas in Kenya to stop the injustices that girls and women go through, and to improve the rights of girls and women with disabilities in the whole country.
Reflect:
1. What kind of barriers do girls and women with disabilities face?
2. What kind of family planning methods are used for girls and women with disabilities?
3. What kind of problems the two most common methods impose in sight of the girls and women?
4. Why is it important to educate girls and women about SRHR?