Sexuality is still a taboo topic in many societies — and the taboo is even greater for people with disabilities. “Parents and relatives believe that a woman with a disability should not engage in sex,” says Gladys Charowa, founder member and director of Harare’s Disabled Women Support Organisation. She is a single mother who has been living with disability since a car accident in 2001. It is not quite so bad for disabled men, she points out: “They can easily find a partner and marry. Women are being denied this right by parents and relatives.”
As a result, some sleep with any man, to get away from their parents. Others are taken advantage of by men, playing on the women’s need to be wanted and loved. Many are raped precisely because of their vulnerability: their disability may make it difficult for them to get away or fight off attackers or, in the case of mental impairment, to understand what is happening.
Ugandan disability activist Patrick Kirumira cites the case of a blind primary school pupil who was raped by two boda-boda (motorcycle taxi) drivers and became pregnant. They may have gambled on her inability to identify them.
Indian disability activist Kuhu Das says research shows that almost 90% of disabled women experience sexual abuse, exploitation and violence from the very people who are supposed to be helping them — caregivers, close relatives and family members.
Sexual partners are also often abusive. Kirumira says that because people with disability feel they have fewer chances of a relationship, they tend to stay with a partner even if he is violent or takes many other partners. A Save the Children Fund survey in Uganda and Rwanda found that young disabled people felt they were less likely to have a faithful partner than their non-disabled peers, and many felt they should be “grateful” to non-disabled partners. A girl in Rukungiri, western Uganda, told Kirumira that her partner visits her after dark and has warned her that if she ever reveals his identity it will be the end of the relationship. “They now have a child; she cannot make any demands or reveal the identity to anybody, for fear of losing him.”
HIV/Aids complicates the problems of discrimination and abuse. A woman who is raped, or has little choice in sexual partners, or has no power in a relationship — which is the experience of huge numbers of people with disability — runs a greatly increased risk of contracting a sexually transmitted disease. Some abusers also believe the myth that sex with a disabled women cures Aids, or think that disabled woman are not likely to be infected with HIV.
Disabled people are less likely than others to be informed about HIV/Aids, even in societies such as Uganda where public information campaigns are widespread. Because they are seen as unlikely to have sex they often miss out on traditional sex education; because they are often illiterate, they may not be able to read publicity material; because they are often poor they may lack access to radio and TV.
Kirumira tells of a disabled man who approached a village health team for a packet of condoms and was asked, “What do you want to do with them?” Rather than risk further mockery and humiliation, the man chose to do without a condom. The difficulty experienced by men in such circumstances can be multiplied many times for a woman.
“First and foremost as women, secondly as women with disabilities. It is still worse if a woman has disability and is HIV-positive. This means this person is being discriminated against three times,” says Charowa.
HIV/Aids organisations are rarely willing to work with people with disabilities, she says. There is no readily available information in Braille or sign language at voluntary testing centres. No provision is made for the blind to read the instructions on condoms.
To avoid yet further hostility, people with disabilities who also have Aids, frequently avoid getting treatment.
“They may choose to suffer and die quietly than come out and expose themselves to humiliation and stigma,” Charowa says.
Minal Doshi, an Indian activist, started a global campaign after she realised that the Millennium Development Goals — which include halting the spread of HIV/Aids, halving extreme poverty and providing universal primary education — have a major flaw: they do not mention disability. Most estimates say one person in 10 is disabled, a word that covers everything from legs blown off by landmines to mental illness, and from epilepsy to deafness. “Given that an estimated 10% of the world’s citizens are disabled, the Aids crisis cannot be addressed successfully unless individuals with disability are routinely included in all Aids outreach efforts.”
Daniel Nelson is editor of the OneWorld UK Website