Leaders of Organizations of Persons with Disabilities (OPDs) has urged Ministry of health to set up a taskforce to address the ongoing discrimination of women and girls with disabilities in provision of sexual and reproductive health services.
According to the OPDs women and girls with disabilities continues to face discrimination and several barriers in accessing sexual and reproductive health and rights and services due to inaccessible infrastructures, negative attitudes and stigma by both the healthcare workers and family members, inadequate disability skills by healthcare workers with most public health centers lacking health workers who can communicate in sign language and most health materials not available in formats accessible to blind and deaf women and girls, lack of accurate data on persons with disabilities as the health information system not capturing data of persons living with disability, lack of full implementation of legal and policy frameworks with regard to persons with disabilities sexual and reproductive health rights and services.
Speaking at an event organized by Health, Education, and Infrastructure Disability Inclusion Consortium (HEIDI) to commemorate the World Population Day, the leaders presented findings showing that women and girls experience barriers in accessing reproductive health services.
According to Jane Ndenga Chairperson, Health Education and Infrastructure Disability Inclusion Consortium (HEIDI), the objective of the World Population Day commemoration event had two objectives. The first objective, to raise public awareness on sexual and reproductive health rights of women and girls with disabilities and consequences of discrimination including maternal deaths, infant mortality, aggravated disability, disproportionate rate of HIV/AIDS infection, mental illness and sexual and gender-based violence. The second objective is calling the government to pay attention to the ongoing discrimination of women with disabilities in provision of sexual and reproductive services and to take immediate policy and programmatic actions to end the discrimination.
“Women and girls with disabilities continues to face discrimination in provision of sexual and reproductive health services in Kenya despite existence of progressive legal frameworks guarantee sexual and reproductive health rights to all Kenyans.”
World Population Day was set aside by the UN in 1994 to focus the world attention on the urgency population issues such as fertility and sexual and reproductive health rights.
The Nairobi even hosted by Women Challenged to Challenge was the first of its kind by disability movement in Kenya intended to highlight urgency of closing the gaps hindering the enjoyment of sexual and reproductive health rights by women and girls with disabilities.
According to the leaders, the recent occurrences in Kenya such as devastating floods and the ongoing political protests led by Gen Z have had negative impacts on access to reproductive health services for women with disabilities.
While Jane Kihungi, Executive Director, Women Challenged to Challenge (WCC) said that for persons with disabilities, the floods increased their vulnerability in humanitarian situations.
For example, she said that those with visual and mobility impairments were cut off from movement and with that, they were cut off from engaging in livelihood activities such as agriculture and trade.
“With regards to sexual and reproductive health, disruption in movement meant that it was impossible to seek reproductive health services be it maternal or family planning services. Humanitarian situations that cut off persons with disabilities from work usually lead to increased sexual and gender-based violence and the flooding period was not an exception.”
She added that, “violent turn of the protest has kept women and girls with disabilities living in protest prone areas to avoid movement during protest days for fear of been caught up in the violence. This means cutting off visit to health facilities to seek sexual and reproductive health services.”
Citing recent studies conducted on the state of the sexual and reproductive health of women and girls with disabilities, the leaders highlighted how far women and girls with disabilities have been left behind in enjoyment of the universal sexual and reproductive health services and rights.
Dr. Josephta Mukobe, Board Secretary, Women Challenged to Challenge (WCC) cited a study conducted in 2021 by Women Challenged to Challenge on the Sexual and Reproductive Health Rights of Women and girls with Disabilities in Nairobi, Siaya and Migori counties found that while Kenya has an elaborate policy and legal framework for promoting sexual and reproductive health rights, women with disabilities.
However, it also established there are a myriad of SRHR issues and challenges experienced by women and girls with disabilities in the communities where they live such as relationships, access to and availability of disability-friendly SRH services; stigma and discrimination.
Sally Nduta, Executive Officer, United Disabled Persons of Kenya (UDPK) said that the starting point should be a careful review of how the government through ministry of health and health departments in county governments understand sexual and reproductive health issues of women and girls with disabilities, how it delivers sexual and reproductive health services to women and girls with disabilities, and the disability inclusion gaps in the legal and policy guidelines implementations.
“We call upon the ministry for health to establish a task force that undertake this task and recommend a national action plan for change.”
The OPDs also calls upon the ministry of health to undertake measures that will lead to sexual and reproductive health data being disaggregated on gender and disability, ensure that public health information made accessible to all women with disabilities in a format that they can easily understands, make sexual and reproductive services accessible to all women with disabilities and ending disability stigma and stereotypes among healthcare workers and lastly promote autonomy and choice of women with disabilities.
