CLASSIC STORY OF THE WEEK.
By Amanda Tanaka Muzhandamuri.
People with disabilities face many challenges during their life time because of the misconceptions by the able-bodied and this has affected their sexual reproductive health (SRH) mostly. During an interview with Kwedu News ,Elvis Musirinofa, the director of AMOR Zimbabwe Trust said that when it comes to Sexual and Reproductive Health (SRH) matters, the rights of people with disabilities are often overlooked as this group of people are denied the right to establish relationships and to decide when, where and with who to establish a serious relationship with and also to decide when and with who to have family with. Musirinofa said that most of the people who are able-bodied have wrong perceptions of people with disability as evidenced by various disability models such as the Charity model, medical, moral/religious and the economic model of disability which has caused them to suppress the sexual reproductive life of the disabled
“Most people have the misconception of people with disabilities which is evidenced by various perceptions which include viewing disabled people as people who depend on charity, people who are cursed and also as people who are economically unstable because the majority of the people thought that the disabled community can’t live without help from others and this has caused the able-bodied to believe that people with disabilities can’t marry able-bodied people” Said Musirinofa.
He further said that many people with disabilities have been subjected to Gender Based Violence (GBV), which include forced sterilization, forced abortions and forced marriages resulting in them experiencing physical, emotional and sexual abuse and all other various forms of GBV. Musirinofa said representative advocacy plays an important role in mitigating the challenges disabled persons are facing but for it to be meaningful it requires the involvement of both the disabled and the able bodied people so that they will be educated on the Sexual and Reproductive Health (SRH) of people with disabilities. In the communities we live, we can see that there is a serious tension between the disabled and those without disabilities, so there is need to raise awareness so that this group of people will be included and their sexual reproductive rights acknowledged and respected.
Kwedu Classics
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