By Eric Ojo
Chairperson Board of Trustees (BoT) and Pioneer/Co-founder of the Joint National Association of Persons with Disabilities (JONAPWD), Miss Omotunde Ellen Thompson has harped on the need to stop all forms of violence against women and girls living with disabilities.
Miss Thompson said there are proven evidence that girls and young women with disabilities may face up to 10 times more violence than women and girls without disabilities.
She noted that perpetrators of such acts may target them because of their limited physical mobility or means of communication, adding that most vulnerable to violence are children on the autism spectrum, as well as those with hearing, visual, psychosocial, or intellectual disabilities.
“Our new In Focus Brief on Violence Against Women and Girls with Disabilities is an effort to explain the causes, types, and consequences of violence against women and girls with disabilities.
“The brief reveals the types of violence that girls with disabilities face throughout their lifecycle – from childhood into adolescence, adulthood, and into old age. It also provides recommendations on how to promote constructive and holistic approaches to inclusive policies, more receptive institutions, and more aware communities”, she said in statement to mark this year’s “16 Days of Activism against Gender-Based Violence”.
The 16 Days of Activism against Gender Based Violence is marked by international and national civil society worldwide yearly. The global theme for this year’s edition of the event 16 Days of Activism again, which will run from 25 November to 10 December 2023, is “Unite”.
It was initiated by activists at the inaugural Women’s Global Leadership Institute in 1991. It is used as an organizing strategy by individuals and organizations around the world to call for the prevention and elimination of violence against women and girls (VAWG).
The Pioneer/Co-founder of JONAPWD also observed that despite the stereotypical perception that violence is typically experienced by younger women, existing data confirms that physical and sexual violence can span a woman’s lifetime, including at later stages.
The cumulative experience of violence throughout the lifecycle, according to her, can have a negative effect on the physical and psychological health and well-being of older women.
“Disability is also often an added risk factor to violence for those women who acquire an age-related condition such as dementia. What’s worse, most of this violence goes unreported and unpunished. Our new In Focus Brief on Violence Against Women and Girls with Disabilities is an effort to explain the causes, types, and consequences of violence against women and girls with disabilities.
“The brief reveals the types of violence that girls with disabilities face throughout their lifecycle – from childhood into adolescence, adulthood, and into old age. It also provides recommendations on how to promote constructive and holistic approaches to inclusive policies, more receptive institutions, and more aware communities”, she added.
She further explained that young girls with disabilities enter adolescence, their risk of experiencing sexual violence increases, adding that harmful myths make them easy targets.
“In some African countries, for instance, it is believed that having sex with a virgin girl or a girl with Albinism may cure HIV/AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases. Girls and young women with disabilities are often perceived as A-sexual, and thus presumed virgins and targeted because of their disabilities.
“Too often, young women with disabilities are excluded from family planning and other sexual and reproductive health services. Low levels of sexual education, including education about HIV transmission and prevention, often translate into risky sexual behaviors”, the stressed.
Miss Thompson who is widely recognized as Nigeria’s People With Disabilities (PWDs) “Life-long Godmother of Disability Civil Rights and Advocacy movement, also pointed that reproductive adulthood is filled with stigma and misconceptions on disability, along with a lack of accessible health services, limited personal autonomy, and little to no sexuality education, which often prevent young women with disabilities from experiencing and engaging in healthy sexual lives.
“While women with disabilities are exposed to the same forms of violence experienced by women without disabilities, the intersection with disability puts them at further risk of violence that is unique and less detectable.
“These forms of violence include a lack of respect for person hood, including withholding of assistive devices, such as wheelchairs, hearing aids, and white canes, which may limit mobility and interaction with other people and increases a sense of powerlessness and dependency.
“As a mother and a Woman With Disability, who wears the shoe and knows where it pinches, today I am speaking with heavy heart and engulfed with sadness on the way and manner individuals, society and gatekeepers, Disability Organizations bureaucracy to women with disability gender violence victims.
The victims are suffering visibly and in apparent trauma, including myself, their voice. Enough is enough. Obstruction of justice for these women must stop”, she further declared.
She therefore noted that governments, civil society and development partners should ensure that women and girls with disabilities are not left behind as far as getting justice for them is concerned.
She also stressed the need to strengthen government agencies with the mandate to prevent and respond to violence in an inclusive manner, adding the authorities should design inclusive and accessible services and programmes that protect women and girls from violence including health services, police stations, shelters and courts to women and girls with disabilities.
“Government should invest in empowering women and girls with disabilities to know their sexual and reproductive rights and how to protect themselves, improve data availability on different forms of violence experienced by women and girls with disabilities in different parts of the world and invest in evidence-based interventions that can demonstrate a decreased incidence of violence and make a sustainable change in the lives of women and girls with disabilities.
“Actively and purposefully include violence against women and girls with disabilities in development projects. For too long, violence against women and girls with disabilities has been an issue surrounded by silence. The time has come to raise more awareness and ramp up our efforts to create deep and long-lasting change for those women and girls that have been left behind”, she further suggested.
Miss Thompson said the best way to could reduce to cases of violences against women and girls is to establish institution mechanisms that advocate and protecting the rights of women and girls, enforcement of law that keep the rights of disability persons increase awareness related to community to stop all discrimination and inequality showed towards women and girls with disability as well as applying principles of Inclusive and equality of all human being in order to get equal opportunity like normal people.