Disabled women’s slog for survival
problems arising, but such challenges can be avoided if the woman gets health education about the ways in which she should prevent the problems (Hershey, 2000).
Mara says: “I was taught everything about gloves, catheter, urine bag and other things during the full year that I spent at St Giles rehabilitation centre after my spinal cord injury, but it’s hard to get things if you have no money. I sell used clothes at the gate of our house in DZ (Dzivarasekwa), but I get very little money. My husband is now living with a non-disabled woman in Mbare and he refuses to help me.”
It is clear that some disabled women may be provided with important personal health care information from local rehabilitation centres, but they may be unable to acquire the disability aids that are required to avoid further health problems, the situation is worse in cases where male partners refuse to co-operate.
Referring to the father of her children, Tsitsi says: “For him to be dead or alive it’s the same for me and my two children. He was hit by lightning and he died, but you see when he was alive he did not talk to my children or give them anything. I got help to look after them from my mother and grandmother and other people.”
Mara provides another example: “When I got disabled, my husband took all the money that was in the house and he went away with a non-disabled woman, leaving me and the children to suffer. He hated both me and the children because I became disabled, I have two girls and a boy.”
It is striking to note that some husbands who would have been providing for their families may discontinue such provision when the wife acquires disability. Under the male child preference syndrome which prevails in most African contexts, boys are more valued than girls, due to a traditional belief that boys have the potential to uplift the man’s tribe (Choruma, 2007), whereas girls are raised to become a husband’s property and to use the husband’s name upon marriage.
However, disabled women report that regardless of whether the children are boys or girls, the children may be disliked and stigmatised because their mothers are disabled, in situations where disability adds an additional layer of disadvantage to both the mother and the children. Such a scenario could be caused by the fact that disability is often associated with taboos, witchcraft and evil spirits.
However, there is evidence that disabled women do not passively receive neglect and abandonment, but they make efforts to engage in informal small-scale income-generating projects.
The reality is that even if some disabled women would want the type of family life in which they could avoid the public space and submit to men who provide for them and their children, it appears that such an option is not available to them on the grounds that the women have disabilities.
A study of the patriarchal experiences of Afghan women under the Taliban revealed that some women do not want to be formally employed but they prefer to passively stay at home under the security of family life (Moghadam, 2002, p28).
Australian studies undertaken by Meekosha and Dowse (1997a, 1997b), indicate that disabled people and particularly disabled women, are usually regarded as non-active people who should quietly stay in the private sphere.
However, disabled women who participated in this study narrated that their choices are limited because whether they like it or not, the unwillingness of husbands or male partners to provide for them, forces them to occupy public space as they go in search of economic opportunities.
In what appears to be a different kind of economic abuse, there is also evidence that some non-disabled men may live with disabled women for as long as the men are being financially supported by the disabled women. For example, referring to her year-long relationship with Nhamo, her unemployed intimate partner whom at 54 is about 16 years older than her, Tsitsi says: “I have lived with this man now for one year, he is a very poor man who owns nothing so he depends on me for everything including food and cigarettes because he smokes. He says before I met him he had the job of working as a neighbourhood watchman at night. Now we live together in my room in Epworth and we use the money that I get from selling vegetables …”
There is a lack of literature on non-disabled men who engage disabled women in intimate partner relationships and stay with the women for as long as the disabled women are supporting the non-disabled men financially.
However, it is difficult to determine whether such men live with disabled women out of genuine love, or because it is a way through which the men sustain a living.
Nevertheless, from the viewpoint of some women with disabilities, a disabled woman’s ability to earn income provides her with an advantage in getting a long term intimate partner, albeit one who is poor and unemployed.
Together let us move Zimbabwe forward through nurturing inclusive communities that facilitate the well-being of persons with disabilities. I, therefore, call for a further analysis of the strategies that disabled women adopt, as they negotiate the economic terrain in an effort to fend for themselves and their children.
Perhaps what is required is intervention strategies that involve both men and women in an effort to instil a proper understanding of disability issues within families and communities, so that husbands whose wives acquire disability receive professional counselling, thereby reducing what appears to be a fear of disability, which results in husbands abandoning their families.
Dr Christine Peta is a public health care practitioner who, among other qualifications, holds a PhD in Disability Studies. Be part of the debate on how best to nurture a society which is more accessible, supportive and inclusive of disabled people. Partner with Disability Centre for Africa (DCFA). WhatsApp +263773699229; website www.dcfafrica.com; e-mail dcfafrica@gmail.com