Women with disabilities (WWDS) suffer multiple discrimination and exclusion resulting from their varied forms of disabilities and being women in a patriarchal environment that largely devalues them just because they are women, so says Professor Cowen Dziva, from the Local Development Research and Advocacy Trust Zimbabwe (Lodrat.)
The intersection of disability and political participation is, in Prof Dziva’s view, part of a great invisible and democracy.
According to the joint research released with Deaf Women Included (DWI), on the disenfranchisement of WWDs, Lodrat, a leading centre for research, training, and advocacy that works to empower the marginalized through advocacy and promotion of home-grown solutions, says WWDs are holding the thin end of the wedge regarding democratic processes.
The report: “Local Governance in Zimbabwe: Inclusion and Participation of Women With Disabilities”, shows WWDs are facing challenges that compromise their active participation in governance.
Over a quarter of a million potential votes may be lost because Persons with disabilities are less likely to vote.
One reason for the lower turnout in Zimbabwe’s political governance is that the environment “has patriarchal and ‘ableist’ norms and attitudes that demand them”.
Nyasha Sengai, programmes officer at DWI, weighs in saying that “what we find in this research is a perpetuation of patriarchy and other social trends we have been tracking in earlier surveys.”
“It’s not just local stigma, not just discrimination, but they cascaded down and compound through patriarchal structures, causing the exclusion we’re experiencing,” she emphasizes.
Deaf Women Included is a grassroots organisation founded in 2014 and works to empower deaf women to claim access to information, health services, education and employment opportunities and to influence government, private sector and civil society to take the rights of deaf women into account in policy-making as well as policy implementation
The report also focuses on various local governance strata – from the village to the national level where social norms and attitudes militate against and bar participation of WWDs.
For instance, a wheelchair user finds themselves not being able to enter a polling place because there is no ramp or the doors are too narrow, the pathway or footpath to the voting area – usually school-ground or classroom – is obstructed or lacks proper signage.
With election staff who may not be fully trained thrown into the equation, the situation can be frustrating and presents a barrier.
Although the report paints a grim and stark picture of the lot of PWDs in general and WWDs in particular, there is a sliver of light with the researchers acknowledging some positive steps taken by the Second Republic under President Emmerson Mnangagwa, who launched the National Disability Policy on June 9, 2021.
While previous scholarship on PWDs in the country have focused on the group’s social exclusion, only a paltry number of studies exist on WWDs’ political inclusion and participation.
“It therefore remains pertinent,” says Prof Dziva,”to investigate and understand the inter-sectionality of disability and other societal gender-cultural norms to influence the inclusion of WWDs in local governance.”
Each person with a disability has unique needs on their specific disability “hence taking a holistic approach to pin-pointing unique barriers is necessary to ensuring that all PWDs – no matter their disability – have equal access to elections”.
“It is critical for policy-makers to keep these realities in mind as they identify barriers to keep PWDs in general and WWDs in particular – from participating in the democratic process,” Prof Dziva, who is also a Commissioner for the Zimbabwe Human Rights Commission, and currently works at the Nehanda Centre for Gender & Cultural Studies, Great Zimbabwe University.
Still, the researchers stressed, representation is thin on the ground and on decision-making platforms – with only two senators representing PWDs across the whole country!
To shrink and eliminate participation gaps between disabled and non-disabled voters law-makers must be pro-active and lobby treasury for robust and continuous funding for election administration as well as engage election management bodies to conduct comprehensive accessibility audits and train on election systems with reform mandates.
