Navigating the unique challenges faced by Girls with Disabilities
A blog by Christina Cushen, Young Expert at Girls Human Rights Hub.
Introduction
To be a girl with disabilities in today’s world is not an easy feast. Having to navigate the double-discrimination, both as a girl and a person with disability, is a challenging terrain to navigate. The intersection of gender and disability creates unique hurdles, influencing every aspect of life, from access to opportunities to societal perceptions.
This report aims to examine the global human rights challenges experienced by girls with disabilities. Its purpose is to shed light on the daily neglect and abuse faced by these girls worldwide.
Source: OurWatch, Preventing violence against women with disabilities. Our Watch and Women with Disabilities Victoria’s conceptual model provides a visual depiction of the intersection of these drivers of violence.
Women are more prevalent to having a disability than men and in the majority of cases it is silent. Today, it is estimated that 19% of women have a disability compared to only 12% of men who live with a disability.
Firstly, the report will examine the violence that women and girl’s with disabilities face. I will be focusing on the violence and how women and girl’s with disabilities are more prone to violence than girls and women who do not have a disability.
Secondly, the report will explore the education barriers that and girl’s with disabilities face compared to girls and women that do not have a disability.
Thirdly, the author of this report will look deeper into the mental health issues of women and girls and their rights around this area compared to girls who do not have a disability. I will be also discussing how these mental health issues impact girl’s compared to girls who do not have a disability.
The final paragraph will be discussing some recommendations that society and governments around the world could implement to support women and girls with disabilities.
Violence towards Girls and women with Disabilities
According to the United Nations Population Fund it is estimated that 40 - 60% of young women with a disability experience sexual violence before the age of 18. However as large number of women and girls with disabilities are invisible, it is difficult to estimate the percentage of women who face this sexual violence. In today's society, studies show that women and girls with disabilities are ten times more likely to be abused than those without disabilities.
In Nepal, a study which involved 475 women between the ages of 16 and 93 with physical hearing and visual impairments, it showed that 58% of these women experience violence from family members, neighbours, 39% by partners and 12% by strangers. In Colombia a study had also shown that 72% of women with a disability experienced having violence by either their partners or husbands during their lifetime with the most common type of violence experienced was 69% experience psychological, 42% experienced physical, 39% experienced economical and 11% experienced sexual violence.
People with disabilities are frequently institutionalised in orphanages/residential care, residential schools, prisons, and psychiatric institutions around the world, which means that when a person with a disability is institutionalised, they are subjected to abuse and neglect. According to Human Rights Watch research, in India, women and girls with disabilities were collected and taken to mental hospitals or residential facilities, or they were admitted by the police when they were found on the streets and deemed dangerous and incapable of caring for themselves.
In an interview with the Human Rights Watch, a 40 year old woman with schizophrenia described her hygiene condition while she was at the Mental Hospital. She stated that “We don’t even get towels. We brush our teeth with tooth powder using our fingers. We change clothes every two days and have to stay naked while the laundry is being done.”
In another case, a 11 year old girl with a mild intellectual disability who lives in a residential care institution told the Human Rights watch that “The aunty [institution staff] who drops me to school hits me. She hits me here [in the institution] too. She slaps me hard with her hand; it hurts. When she hits me, I feel like crying and I feel sad. I feel like crying in school too...The house aunty gives me gaalis (swears) every day. When I don’t feel like going to school, she hits me. I want to leave this place.”
Girls and women around the world account for one fifth of all the female population that are in jails and prisons. However, by two studies it has shown women and girl’s with psychosocial disabilities are more likely to face incarceration and this is usually due to lack of support, therefore this increases the criminal activity that these vulnerable women and girls engage in.
These issues are not uncommon in girls and women, and many girls face violence simply because they have a disability. Unfortunately, these stories are common all over the world.
Source: Dawn Canada, #DayOfTheGirl Blog
Education barriers to women and girls with Disabilities
According to the Women Enabled International it is estimated that only 71.7% of girls with a disability have completed primary school compared to 52.9% of girls without a disability. This goes further as the global literacy rate for women with a disability is at 1%.
One of the major reasons why girls with disabilities do not attend school is because of disability-related stereotypes. This means that many girls are kept isolated at home, and their births may not even be registered in the first place. As a result, this is consistent with the other stereotype that people believe a girl with a disability cannot succeed and cannot become successful, and thus it is perceived that providing the girl with an education is not worthwhile.
Another major problem that is faced by girls is that a lot of schools are not equipped to accommodate and educate girls with a disability due to their special needs. This means a lot of the time girls are segregated in special needs schools which means that they are segregated from the rest of the world. As one Afghan student who uses a wheelchair stated that “Unfortunately, I cannot go to school by myself—I need someone to take me to school and pick me up. The school has no ramp, so it’s hard for me to get in and out of the classroom, and sometimes even that’s impossible.” Unfortunately, this is the reality for many girls around the world.
In Nepal, a 13 year old girl who has a hearing impairment had to drop out of school as the school lacked resources to support her and therefore her teachers were unable to communicate with her. However, this all changed when the Voluntary Service Overseas with a sign language interpreter taught this girl sign language. Therefore, this meant that she was able to communicate with her peers and teachers and that she was able to return back to school.
A 15 Year old girl with dyslexia said that she had to leave her school as the school struggled to accommodate her learning difficulties. She stated that “This school was like an anthill, every year they filtered the best to keep only the elite,” she said. “Those who are a little defective, they do everything they can to reject them. They wanted us to feel bad enough to leave on our own.”
However, girls all over the world face educational barriers. For many girls, the ability to attend school and be supported at school is very limited, which means that many girls will miss out on an education. This means that their dreams of obtaining an education are a long way off.
Mental Health issues that women and girls with disabilities experience
The World Health Organisation states that the fourth common death for people aged between 15-29 years old is suicide and the most common form of disability is depression and therefore people with undiagnosed mental health issues die prematurely. According to the Canadian Government estimates that 21% girls between the age of 16 and 21 have a mental health condition compared to just 8.9% of boys in the same age bracket. This is contrasted by an Australian Women with Disabilities Report where it highlighted that women with a disability are more prone to mental health issues due to social, economic barriers as well as being prone to violence and abuse. The survey highlighted that 43% of women with a profound or severe core-activity limitation experienced symptoms of a mental health condition compared to just 20% of the general population within 12 months.
Source: UN Women
Unfortunately, as gender plays a massive role in mental health issues and mental illness which statistics have shown exacerbate in associated disabilities predominantly comorbid disorders. Researchers believe that depression is more common in women than men. Depression accounts for 41.9% of neuropsychiatric disorders compared to just 29.3% of men and women have the highest rate of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder.
However, In the world we live in, many people do not think mental health issues or a mental illness as a disability but as a woman who suffers from an anxiety condition, it is very much a disability. For people like myself that have an underlying disability the comorbidity is very much a challenge and for many women like myself share the same or similar experiences.
In many cases, getting the necessary help and support is nearly impossible for many people. However, I am one of the fortunate ones who was able to obtain the necessary assistance and break down these barriers, whereas many women around the world are unable to do so because thousands of people ended up chained and locked up in confined spaces due to their psychosocial disabilities.
In Indonesia a 25 year old woman who has a psychosocial disability and is in an institution told Human Rights Watch that “They shaved my head because there is a lot of lice. I used to ask not to cut my hair but they would cut it anyway. They never give lice shampoo. They shave my head every three months. They shave everyone’s hair.”
In Nigeria, a woman who had a breakdown when her mother passed away was sent to various Islamic Healers and she said that she had been repeatedly tied up with a rope and sexually assaulted by the traditional healers. She said “He told me to undress, that it is the part of the healing process, and then he started touching my body,” Amina said. “Explain to me, how is that part of a healing process? How is that Islamic?”.
Like myself who has autism, my anxiety plays a major role in my life but I know that I am not the only woman in a similar position as many girls and women are in the same position as me as we as women face many difficulties and challenges especially due to sexual and gender violence which plays a massive role in this area.
Recommendations to support women and girls with Disabilities
One of the biggest things that governments need to do around the world that has been echoed by the United Nations is to engage women and girls in policy design and national strategies. This will enhance empowerment to many women and girls who feel like second class citizens because of theory disability because they are female.
Another important thing that companies and government sectors need to do is to advocate and promote women and girls with disabilities. One way that they can do that is to promote positions to women with disabilities as unless we challenge the stigma and promote achievements of women and girls with disabilities the stigma in society is never going to change.
To enhance the potential for education with girls who have disabilities, governments need to fund and support schools to be able to support girls who have a disability as many schools do not have the funding to implement the necessary staff and programs to give the full potential for a girl with a disability to thrive. As a result, if schools received more government support, there would be fewer dropouts among girls with disabilities because they would have the ability and potential to thrive. Another critical issue is that governments should encourage schools to hire teachers and staff with disabilities, as this will ensure and promote the school as disability friendly, breaking down barriers to access for parents and girls.
Conclusion
Women and girls with disabilities are a minority in today's society due to societal perceptions and behaviours. However, in the twenty-first century, society must change, and society must change now before it is too late. Society can change around the world, but people and governments must advocate for change, and governments must prioritise this issue because many women and girls are treated as second-class citizens simply because of their disability. Many times, it is not even their fault, but they are forced to live a life of guilt and isolation. This needs to change so that every woman and girl, regardless of disability, can reach their full potential in life.
Sources
https://www.ohchr.org/en/statements/2021/07/panel-1-violence-against-women-and-girls-disabilities
https://www.hrw.org/sites/default/files/report_pdf/india1214.pdf
https://www.vsointernational.org/news/blog/the-right-to-education-for-girls-with-disabilities
https://www.who.int/health-topics/mental-health#tab=tab_1
https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/daily-quotidien/220304/dq220304b-eng.htm
https://aho.org/health-topics/girls-mental-health/
https://social.un.org/publications/UN-Flagship-Report-Disability-Final.pdf
https://www.hrw.org/news/2021/08/10/shackling-women-name-mental-health