Women, Sex And Disability - a Triple Taboo

-- Sexuality is still a taboo topic in many societies - and the taboo is even greater for people with disabilities.

"Parents and relatives believe that a woman with disability should not engage in sex", says Gladys Charowa, founder member and Executive Director of Disabled Women Support Organisation (DWSO), a single mother who has been living with disability since injuring her spinal cord in a car accident in 2001.

It is not quite so bad for disabled men, she points out: "They can easily find a partner and marry through assistance from relatives. Women are being denied this right by parents and relatives."

As a result, some sleep with any man, to get away from their parents. Others are taken advantage of by men, playing on the women's need to be wanted and loved. Many are raped precisely because of their vulnerability: their disability may make it difficult for them to get away or fight off attackers or, in the case of mental impairment, to understand what is happening. Ugandan disability activist Patrick Kirumira cites the case of a blind primary school pupil in the country's Luwero district who was raped by two "boda-boda" (motorcycle taxi) boys and became pregnant. They may have gambled on her inability to identify them.

All this is bad enough, but unfortunately, is just the surface of the problem. Indian disability activist Kuhu Das says that research shows that almost 90 per cent of disabled women experience sexual abuse, exploitation and violence from the very people who are supposed to be helping them - care-givers, close relatives and family members.

Sexual partners are also often abusive. Kirumira says that because people with disability feel they have fewer chances of a relationship, they tend to stay with a partner even if he is violent or takes many other partners. A Save the Children Fund survey in Uganda and Rwanda found that young disabled people felt they were less likely to have a faithful partner than their non-disabled peers, and "many felt they should be grateful" to non-disabled partners. --