Police urged to make reporting easy for people with disabilities

THE Zimbabwe Republic Police should introduce mechanisms to make it more friendly for people with visual and hearing impairments, especially women, to report when their rights have been violated, an expert has said.

According to the 2022 Population and Housing Census Results for Bulawayo province released by the Zimbabwe National Statistics Agency (ZimStats), women with disabilities constitute 1.8 percent of the provincial population, which currently stands at 650 000 inhabitants, while the disability prevalent rate stands at 1.4 percent.

Federation of Organisations of Disabled People in Zimbabwe (FODPZ) Bulawayo chapter chairperson Sukholuhle Mhlanga told New Ziana that reporting mechanisms at most police stations were not friendly to people, especially women, with diverse disabilities.

“Society should appreciate that as women with disabilities we are also victims of gender-based violence. You find that women with disabilities are violated by their closest family members so in that case the cases end up being swept under the carpet whilst trying to protect family members. It’s really worrisome.

“Another issue is the reporting mechanisms that are not friendly to people with diverse disabilities. You find that you walk into a police station and a deaf woman has been violated. You find that there are no Sign language interpreters to cater for them. We want to see an improvement in that regard,” said Mhlanga.

She highlighted the need to improve on the dissermination of information around gender-based violence, particularly to people with diverse disabilities.

“I have never come across a poster or video explaining the effects of gender-based violence in videos to cater for the deaf community. We need information that is printed in braille so that those with visual impairments can access information about gender-based violence as a way to curb the vice.

“Imagine, if a person from an urban set up is struggling to access information or a deaf woman from the urban areas is failing to access information on GBV, what of women in rural areas? I think we need to work together as communities, institutions and organisations to try and curb gender-based violence, particularly for women with disabilities.”

Mhlanga commended the government for adopting Sign language as one the country’s official languages, adding that every institution should now have a person responsible for dealing with the deaf.

“I would like to appreciate that as Zimbabwe, we recognise Sign language as one of the 16 official languages. I think it is high time as a nation we move from paper to practice. We need to implement such policies.”

She called for the introduction of disability policies at institutional level, saying this will assist in fighting gender-based violence, especially against women with disabilities.

“When it comes to disability programming, society always tends to turn a blind eye. Everyone is a potential disabled person so we need to create an enabling environment so that we are able to embrace people who acquire disabilities at a later stage,” she said. — New Ziana