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UNITED NATIONS, New York – As the COVID-19 pandemic overwhelms healthcare systems, closes businesses, and triggers an increase in gender-based violence, people with disabilities face particularly acute challenges. This is one of the key ideas of a series of consultations that UNFPA and Women Enabled International (WEI) carried out in September and October, with the support of the United Nations Alliance on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities.
Even before the pandemic, people with disabilities faced extremely high barriers to accessing sexual and reproductive health information and services. Now, with many services interrupted due to blocking measures, these services are even less accessible.
“There are services that have not been provided… They say during COVID-19 [pandemic], they cannot provide those services. Maybe later, ”explained Ruth Kamchacha, in Malawi, during the recent consultation.
As a visually impaired person and director of a disability advocacy group, you know these challenges very well.
Health services increasingly out of reach
Women with disabilities are among the most vulnerable, said participants in the consultations, which reached 200 people with disabilities in 19 countries around the world.
“COVID-19 affected women with disabilities economically. It put pressure on them… Most of them are raising their children by themselves, ”explained Ms. Kamchahca.
Financial pressures, combined with the rising cost of transportation to health centers, means that many women choose to forgo care.
“You discover that the minibus that costs 250 kwacha is now 1000 … Some women would think: ‘For me to get those services, I have to pay [for] this with the same money that I can use to buy food. ‘
Even under normal circumstances, health services do little to accommodate people with disabilities, Kamchacha said.
“You will find that there is no sign language interpretation there” in most health centers in Malawi. While there are often posters to provide information to the hearing impaired, “there is nothing that really helps someone who cannot read on their own.”
The same is also true in other countries.
“One of the main problems in my country is the lack of interpretation of sign language when it comes to health, and specifically sexual and reproductive health,” said Niluka Gunawardena, who has a physical and psychosocial disability. She is a university professor and works with the HYPE organization in Sri Lanka.
“It creates spaces within health care, within sexual health, that are very exclusive and inaccessible,” he said.
Dangerous stigmas
Consultation participants reported seeing and experiencing significant stigmas around people with disabilities who engage in sexual activities. These taboos severely limit their access to sexual health information and services and impede their autonomy over their bodies and choices.
“Women with disabilities cannot access contraception, emergency contraception, abortion, even if they comply with one of the three [legally] accepted reasons – or decent work, ”said Marcela Benavides, who has a psychosocial disability. She is the president of CIMUNDIS, an organization for the rights of persons with disabilities in Chile.
“There is a general assumption of asexuality in most cases of disability,” Ms Gunawardena said, “and then hypersexuality when it comes to psychosocial disabilities or learning disabilities, which means that the sexuality of people with disabilities does not you really think about coming to the public health agenda ”.
The consequences can be devastating.
Ms. Kamchacha’s organization, Disabled Women in Africa, reported a case in which a woman with a disability came to a Malawian health center to give birth. “The staff was like, you know, hurling terrible insults at him. ‘As a woman with a disability, why did you put yourself in this state? Why did you get pregnant? ‘”
The woman was abandoned during childbirth. “The patient, or the victim, ended up losing the baby,” Ms. Kamchacha explained, “and the husband ended the marriage.”
In many places, people with disabilities rely on advocacy groups and community support networks to fill the gaps. These groups can provide accessible information on sexual and reproductive health, facilitate health services, and offer other assistance. But with COVID-19, many of these mechanisms have been disrupted.
“Another major obstacle, especially in the context of COVID-19, has been the breakdown of community support networks,” said Ms Gunawardena. “Due to social distancing and isolation, community support networks have collapsed.”
Defenders undeterred
Despite these challenges, defenders are working hard to ensure that the human rights of persons with disabilities are respected, including their reproductive rights.
In Sri Lanka, Ms Gunawardena and her colleagues organize digital forums with community leaders “looking at sexual and reproductive health and rights, gender-based violence and the experiences of disabled women.”
In Chile, Ms. Benavides’s organization is working to “give a strong feminist perspective” to leaders working on the rights of people with disabilities.
In Malawi, Ms. Kamchacha’s group is working with WEI and UNFPA to make information on sexual and reproductive health available and accessible to people with disabilities during the pandemic.
And the insights from the WEI and UNFPA consultations are being used to develop guidance and good practices, to be released early next year.
