Stepping up access to health for young women living with disabilities
A conversation with Agness Chindimba
Agness Chindimba is deaf and a champion for women and girls living with disabilities. She is the founder and Project Coordinator of the Zimbabwe Deaf Media Trust. She enjoys working with young deaf women and supporting their growth and empowerment. Ms Chindimba is also a member of Deaf Women Included, an organization founded in 2014 that works with deaf women from across Zimbabwe, focusing on the dissemination of information to deaf women on health, education, life skills and being active participants in decisions affecting their lives.
What does the right to health mean to you?
I see the right to health as a basic human right that should be accessible to all, with accessibility being unrestricted by cost or the physical environment. The right to health also means having choices on health issues that affect our bodies, including sexual and reproductive health, choice about marriage, choosing the number of children to have and safe delivery. The right to health should incorporate economic empowerment to enable girls and women to have nutrition for good health. Ultimately, having control over our bodies is what the right to health means to me.
What is preventing adolescent girls and young women living with disabilities from being able to exercise their right to health?
Adolescent girls and young women living with disabilities are prevented from accessing their right to health by the attitudes of health workers and society when it comes to sexual and reproductive health. Families and society at large do not equip girls living with disabilities with information because it is still believed that women and girls living with disabilities are asexual.
The attitudes of health workers prevent girls and women living with disabilities from accessing health services, even at the times when they need them the most. In Zimbabwe, there is a lack of disability-friendly health information on, for example, cancer, HIV, menstruation and gender-based violence. The absence of information in sign language, braille or large print leaves women living with disabilities with huge knowledge gaps. This information gap, combined with general low education and limited access to health information on social media, leaves behind adolescent girls and young women living with disabilities.
What more can be done to make sure that adolescent girls and young women living with disabilities can access services?
There is a need to disseminate information in user-friendly formats, including sign language, braille and, for printed materials, large fonts. I believe that innovative approaches utilizing art, drama, mime, pictures, music, captions and subtitles to develop creative visual and interactive health messages on health education can help to raise health awareness for adolescent girls and young women living with disabilities. There needs to be societal change in attitudes and sentiment around communities living with disabilities.
The health and rights of people living with disabilities need to be mainstreamed. Peer counsellors for adolescent girls and young women living with disabilities should be trained to have a better understanding of the experiences of their peers. Providers should be aware of the impact of gender-based violence on adolescent girls and young women living with disabilities. Empowering adolescent girls and young women with the life skills they need to be economically independent will increase their independence and increase their access to the right to health.
Do you think the situation has improved at all over the past 20–30 years?
I don’t think the situation has improved, and it appears to be getting worse, with many adolescent girls living with disabilities forced into early marriages. These marriages happen despite the law. Girls are unaware and unprotected. The police know little about disabilities and courts have limited resources to give support other than when volunteers help.
The high number of HIV infections among young women living with disabilities shows their vulnerability to abuse and their lack of access to the right to health. Organizations providing family planning and HIV testing and counselling do not use sign language, offer disability supportive services or have disability-inclusive materials. The situation cannot improve if even government buildings are not wheelchair accessible. I am and will continue to be committed to advocating, speaking up and supporting adolescent girls and young women living with disabilities until a real improvement happens.
Deaf Women Included aims to empower girls and young women living with disabilities to claim their rights and assist in the development of their own communities. It is a member of the Zimbabwe Feminist Forum, the African Feminist Forum, the Women’s Coalition of Zimbabwe and the National Association of Disabled Women Network.
Read more in UNAIDS’ new report Right to Health.
