UGANDA: Women with Disabilities Cry out for Justice

Erica, a deaf woman who fled her rural village to Lira town, could not communicate with her nurses effectively while giving birth.

She was not aware that she was having twins and stopped pushing after the birth of the first child. “[The nurse] was very rude to me, and she didn't know sign language. She couldn't even tell me to push. She wasn't guiding me. One of my children died,” Erica told Human Rights Watch.

Safia Nalule Juuko, Member of Parliament representing women with disabilities says when disabled women go to hospitals to deliver, they cannot get on the delivery beds because they are extremely high.

“[The nurses] tell you to get on the bed. You try to get on, but the bed is rolling. They say, ‘You get on the bed! How did you get on the bed when you got pregnant?'”Juuko says.

Erica, also a victim of domestic violence, was beaten regularly by her husband. Her neighbours steal things from her, do not return money they have borrowed, and call her derogatory names.

“The neighbours beat my children. When they played with the children of neighbours, they were told to go away. They said, ‘You'll spread deafness to my family,” Erica told HRW in an interview.

These women living with disabilities in northern Uganda now want the public to stop discriminating against them.

In a report released by Human Rights Watch titled “As if We Weren't: Human Discrimination and Violence against Women with Disabilities in Northern Uganda” women with disabilities in northern Uganda say they experience ongoing discrimination and sexual and gender-based violence.

Many are unable to gain access to basic services, including healthcare and justice, and they have been largely ignored in post-conflict reconstruction efforts. After suffering 20 years of displacement and war, people in northern Uganda moved into camps set up for internally displaced people.

While challenges are daunting for all displaced people trying to return to their original homes, government has failed to cater for the needs of disabled women.

The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees reports that as of May 2010, there were 3,098 persons with disabilities remaining in camps – the majority of them female.

The 73-page report, describes frequent abuse and discrimination by strangers, neighbours, and even family members against women and girls with disabilities in the North.

Women interviewed for the report said they were not able to get basic provisions such as food, clothing and shelter in camps for displaced persons or in their own communities.

“In the camp, people told me ‘you are useless. You are a waste of food.' People told me I should just die so others can eat the food,” Charity from Amuru district told HRW.

Of the 64 women interviewed in six districts of northern Uganda, more than one-third told HRW that they had experienced some form of sexual or physical abuse. None had been able to press criminal charges or pursue prosecution of their attackers.

Disabled women living with HIV/AIDS suffer further discrimination due to their HIV positive status.
“I cannot bathe near others, my neighbours think that the water that comes off of me has HIV in it. They say I will get the community sick if they touch the water,” Candace, a woman with HIV and who has an amputated leg from a landmine, told HRW.

Women with disabilities, the report notes, are especially vulnerable to HIV because of poverty, difficulty in negotiating safe sex, lack of accessible information and susceptibility to violence and rape. Many of the women could not reach health centres or police stations, which are often far away or are inaccessible.

“Women with disabilities are often not given any information about sexual or reproductive health and HIV yet they have real sexual health needs, and also need to be protected from sexual violence and be able to get justice when abused,” says Shantha Rau Barriga, an advocate at Human Rights Watch.

According to a 2007 national survey, approximately 20 percent of people in Uganda have disabilities. However, northern Uganda is believed to have higher disability rates because of war-related injuries and limited access to treatment or vaccines for illnesses.

Now HRW wants government to make funds more accessible to disabled women and girls to gain economic empowerment and independence.