In Uganda: Disabled Women Experience Double Discrimination

In Uganda women with disabilities are stigmatized, discriminated against, violently attacked and usually live in absolute poverty….but the greatest challenge for many of them is centered on reproductive health issues.  They bear the brunt of being discriminated against for two reasons….because they are women and because they have a disability. 

Typically social programs in Uganda that deal with empowering women and gender equality issues do not target these women because of their disability.  Uganda has a disability policy including a People with Disabilities Act.  It is also a signatory to the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities that calls for the protection of rights for people living with disabilities.  But there are no efforts to incorporate reproductive health services into such legislation. 

Giving birth in Uganda is a dangerous and dirty business. The clinics where the impoverished can afford to give birth are so awful, unclean and ill equipped that many women would rather take the chance and birth at home, even though they may not have the proper or sanitary instruments necessary to guarantee a healthy and safe delivery. As a result, both infant and mother mortality are heartbreakingly high because of infection and lack of proper care. Often the mothers are left alone, in their pain and without support, only to be treated indifferently and harshly during the birth itself.

Many women are even hit by their midwives if they cry out or scream. Also, because of high instances of untreated malaria, mothers often miscarry in the second trimester. Caesareans are practiced with unnecessary frequency, abortions are primitive, and often mother's with HIV/AIDS aren't given the drugs available to prevent mother to child transmission at the time of delivery. All too commonly, the disease is passed to the child through her breast milk as a result.

Midwives have almost no training on how to handle expectant mothers with disabilities.  They don’t know how to move them properly or about the complications that specific disabilities can cause during delivery.  Making matters worse these health care facilities have beds that are not designed for women who have difficulty with mobility.  The beds are very high and cannot be adjusted.  The lack of special  beds often requires the mid-wife to squat on the floor to deliver a baby.

Midwives also cannot communicate with women who are visually impaired or deaf.  They cannot give vital information to expectant mothers about pregnancy or to new mothers on how to care for their babies.  There is a great need to train health workers — particularly midwives - on how to communicate with and educate women with disabilities.

The reproductive health rights of women with disabilities are not only violated during childbirth. Sexual exploitation is another huge problem that subsequently leads to unwanted pregnancies and complications during childbirth. It also increases the chances of these women contracting sexually transmitted infections including HIV/AIDS.