Fulgence Zamblé
ABIDJAN, Nov 1 2006 (IPS) – Marginalised by society because they have few legal or institutional forms of protection, disabled women in Cote d Ivoire are now coming out of the shadows and demanding their rights particularly those related to their sexual and reproductive lives.
Even if we don t get benefits, what s important to us is our rights, said Fatim Koné, a resident of the Ivorian financial capital, Abidjan, who had a leg amputated three years ago.
Anne-Cécile Konan, a disabled person, and president of the National Union of Handicapped Women of Cote d Ivoire (Union nationale des femmes handicapées de Côte d Ivoire) agrees. Society has to listen to us we re not going to turn back, she notes.
The union a non-governmental organisation (NGO) based in Abidjan was created two months ago by women who split from an older association for the disabled that included both men and women. No government agency has been established to oversee the care of disabled people in the state.
According to the Ivorian Ministry of Family, Women and Children, there are more than 300,000 disabled women in the West African country. There were few four years ago. But with the crisis and the ravages of war, the number went up, it said in a statement, this in reference to a 2002 attempted coup that divided Cote d Ivoire into a rebel-held north, and government-controlled south. The rebels claim to have taken up arms to fight discrimination against people in the north.
Obstetrician and gynaecologist Kouadio Bohoussou notes that there is no reason why disabled women should refrain from sex.
Handicapped women have the right to a normal sex life Their handicap does not detract in any way from their ability to be mothers, he says.
But as many women can attest, this view has yet to achieve broad acceptance in society as a whole.
Koné, for instance, tells of how her husband was ridiculed when news of her pregnancy was announced; the baby is due in about four months. He subsequently left her.
I wasn t born with this handicap, and even though I m in this state I ve always wanted to have a child, she told IPS. But after I got pregnant, I was abandoned by my husband.
Koné says the loss of her leg has also been used by family members to deny her assistance with health care.
My husband, then my parents, let me know that just my being handicapped was already a burden for them. Being pregnant became another burden, especially since I no longer work and no longer receive a salary. They decided to leave me to my own devices, she explained. Before her accident Koné was a secretary, earning about 240 dollars a month.
Clarisse Madou Aka, a psychologist based in Abidjan, says of the disabled: The problem is not their will to have a normal sex life, but how that will be perceived by their families.
However, it s not only families that pose problems. Able-bodied people are ashamed to have a romantic relationship with disabled people, Alice Kassy, a 26-year-old who was disabled by polio at a young age, told IPS. We re stigmatised by society, and that s also an obstacle to our personal development.
An Abidjan-based NGO for disabled persons, Live Standing Up , has called for the enforcement of a law adopted in 1998 that accords them the same rights as able-bodied persons to employment, and services such as education and training.
Disabled women have also appealed for health programmes that address their needs to be more effective.
As far as reproduction is concerned, handicapped women need to be regularly monitored They must have an annual gynaecological examinations, pre-natal monitoring in case of pregnancy, and give birth in health centres that have operating room facilities, says Bohoussou. These precautions must be accompanied by post-natal monitoring if the handicap in physical.
In addition, the women would like to be closely involved in the conception, development and implementation of health policy in general, notably as concerns polio.
We are, for the most part, victims of this incapacitating disease, and today some of us are mothers. We think we can be effective consciousness-raisers with families on this issue, they noted in a statement.
