A feature by Beatrice Akua Mahmood
Accra, Dec. 9, GNA – As a woman with a disability and the Gender and Disability Inclusion Specialist at the United Nations Country Office in Ghana, my life’s work has been dedicated to amplifying voices too often left unheard.
From my early days as the founder of the Voices of Women and Children with Disabilities in Ghana (VOWACGhana) to my role as Technical Adviser on Social Inclusion, I have worked tirelessly to challenge systemic silencing and create platforms for women and children with disabilities to speak, lead, and thrive.
I am a strong advocate for their rights and from where I stand, the current crisis of Gender-based violence (GBV) against women with disabilities is an urgent national emergency that demands intersectional action.
The Stark Reality of Our Lives
When the world observes the 16 Days of Activism against Gender-Based Violence, I feel a renewed sense of urgency because for my community, the risks are exponentially higher. Research consistently shows that women and girls with disabilities are victims of violence at a magnitude greater than their non-disabled peers. We are at least two to three times more likely to experience physical, sexual and emotional violence.
This risk is significantly heightened by the cruel intersection of misogyny and ableism, a double discrimination that perpetrators exploit to strip away our privacy and agency. The global scale of this crisis is stark, nearly all women with disabilities are considered at risk of sexual violation and studies have found that half of those who have endured sexual violence were assaulted more than ten times. In Australia, one study found that women with disabilities were subjected to sexual violence at three times the rate of those without disabilities (UNFPA, 2018).
Violence Beyond the Physical
The abuse we face is not confined to the home or the street; it is layered and systemic. In Ghana, deeply ingrained gender and disability stereotypes normalise violence and undermine the credibility of women with disabilities. Studies in the Upper West Region, for instance, confirm that domestic violence is widespread, with husbands often identified as the main instigators, sustained by entrenched social norms and patriarchy (Dery & Diedong, 2014). The research in the Ashanti Region on sexual violence against women with disabilities underscores how pervasive this issue is across our country. Across the African continent, we even see the danger of phenomena like “night-husbands”, men who use women with disabilities for sex but refuse to be seen with them publicly, sometimes resulting in violence (Carew et al. in prep; Bangura, Njelesani & Njelesani, 2021).
Institutional Violence:
This is a systemic failure. Institutional GBV occurs when state bodies and services, such as police stations and shelters, are physically or communicatively inaccessible, thereby denying us justice, safety and support. As an example, the experience of deaf women in South Africa who struggle to report abuse because few service providers understand sign language (Davids & Van Staden, 2024).
This is a reality for many deaf women in Ghana and in most of the African countries. A report given by a representative from the domestic violence and victim support unit (DOVVSU) at a program organised by VOWACGhana on the 16 days of genderbased violence activism stated that, till date, most of the (DOVVSU) buildings are not accessible.
The report indicated that due to the inaccessibility of their buildings, the women with disabilities who come there to make complaints are met at the reception where they are made to tell their stories. Discussing some of these traumatising issues in an open place like the reception where anybody can overhear them amounts to the breach of their right to privacy and confidentiality.
Furthermore, A shelter that has stairs, or a hotline without teletypewriter (TTY) access, is not a refuge, it is part of the system perpetuating our vulnerability. A (TTY) access allows deaf, hard of hearing or speech impaired person to communicate over the phone by typing and reading text messages instead of speaking and listening.
One of the most insidious forms of violence occurs in institutions meant to provide care and education: special schools. Women and girls with disabilities in various special schools experience high rates of GBV, with these crimes often being perpetuated by caregivers or other authority figures.
They experience all forms of gender-based violence, including rape, as well as psychological and emotional abuses such as maltreatment.
A tragic example highlights this systemic vulnerability: A girl with a visual impairment in a special school was raped in an uncompleted building on the school premises. When the issue was reported, some teachers and school authorities shamefully suggested that the young woman was to blame, claiming she had enticed the man and arranged to meet him. She subsequently became pregnant and dropped out of school. This type of response, which shifts blame to the survivor, is a common reality in many such cases and underscores a profound safeguarding failure.
Online Gender-Based Violence (OGBV):
The digital revolution was supposed to be a great equaliser, yet it has become another frontier for abuse. Online gender-based violence is the new epidemic, encompassing technology-facilitated abuse like non-consensual image sharing, cyberstalking and coordinated trolling. For women with disabilities, this is weaponised further.
Perpetrators exploit the very digital tools we rely on for assistance (like communication apps or smart devices) to monitor, track and coerce us. This dualthreat leads to deep psychological harm and forces women with disabilities to retreat from public and political life, effectively silencing our advocacy.
Our Path to Justice:
To manage this crisis, we must adopt an intersectional, trauma-informed and holistic approach focused on Prevention, Protection and Prosecution.
Prevention: We must focus on challenging gender and disability stereotypes from childhood, and promoting accessible, inclusive digital literacy.
Protection: We must focus on creating immediate safety and support for survivors. This involves mandating 100% physical and communication accessibility in all GBV support services, including shelters and hotlines and providing necessary aids like trained sign language interpreters to ensure no survivor is excluded from seeking help.
Prosecution: Aims to ensure justice and accountability for perpetrators. This requires the enactment of specific online gender-based violence legislation that recognises intersectional abuse and implementing mandatory, specialised training for all police and judicial officers to eliminate discriminatory attitudes and properly handle complex cases involving women with disabilities.
I want to use this article as a medium to put forth urgent recommendations and implore the Government of Ghana, the Ministry of Gender, Children and Social Protection and all justice agencies to act on them immediately.
We must fast-track dedicated national legislation against Online Gender-Based Violence. This law must specifically recognise and criminalise online abuse that targets women based on the intersection of their gender and disability, ensuring penalties reflect the severity of this compounded violation.
We must require 100% physical and communication accessibility in all state-run and funded GBV support services, including shelters, police stations and crisis hotlines. This includes providing dedicated, trained sign language interpreters and accessible digital reporting platforms, ensuring no survivor is excluded from seeking help.
The Ghana Statistical Service must mandate that all national surveys and data collection on gender-based violence be disaggregated by disability status and type. Without accurate, granular data, our policies will continue to fail this population. We must know the scope of the problem to allocate resources effectively.
We demand mandatory, continuous, and specialised training for all police, prosecutors and judicial officers on the complexities of GBV against women with disabilities. This training must eliminate discriminatory attitudes that question the credibility of survivors and ensure the provision of necessary legal accommodations.
Finally, I recommend that robust and enforceable safeguarding policies should be formulated and implemented to ensure the prevention, protection and management of gender-based violence against women and girls with disabilities in the various institutions.
Safeguarding is basically measures taken to protect and preserve the health, well-being and the rights of all persons. These safeguarding mechanisms when properly established, will enable women and girls with disabilities to live free from neglect, harm and abuse.
Some of these safeguarding measures include: establishing clear reporting mechanisms, conducting detailed background checks on the staff in the various institutions and finally providing accessible and confidential spaces for disclosure by women and girls with disabilities who experience gender-based violence in these institutions.
The focus is on the human rights and dignity of the estimated 1.3 billion people globally who live with disabilities (Regional Gender-Based Violence Working Group for East and Southern Africa, 2023).
As a woman with a disability, I refuse to accept a Ghana where we must live in fear, whether in our homes, in public or in the digital space. My commitment is unwavering and I will continue to work tirelessly with every stakeholder until every woman and girl, regardless of her ability, can thrive without the threat of violence.
GNA
Beatrice Akua Mahmood is a person with visual impairment and the Gender and Disability Inclusion Specialist for the United Nations Country Office in Ghana,