Accusations of ‘Witchcraft’ & Women & Girls with Disabilities Women Enabled International – CSW59

March 2015

By Stephanie Ortoleva, Women Enabled International

Women and girls with disabilities, like all women and girls, are subjected to harmful practices such as female genital mutilation, forced marriage, and rape (including rape by a spouse. Forced marriage in the context of disability is based on misguided ideas that the daughter with a disability will need someone to care for and financially support her or that if she does not marry, her siblings will not be viewed as eligible for marriage by the community or the young woman with a disability is forced to marry a man who has “disgraced family honor.” Women and girls with disabilities are subjected to gender-specific and disability-specific harmful traditional practices, and therefore are more discriminated against, violated, marginalized and exploited.

The role of human rights education, focusing on core human rights principles and traditional values that coincide with those principles is an important tool for change. States are responsible for taking systematic action to modify or eliminate stereotypes and negative, harmful and discriminatory practices justified by traditional values. Both approaches are required under the CEDAW and the CRPD. The basic absence of data on accusations of witchcraft and resultant harm to women and girls with disabilities must be remedied with accurate and disability and gender-desegregated data. Additionally, to ensure that the rights of women and girls with disabilities are included as we embark on this discussion, the international women’s rights movement must include our sisters with disabilities in analysis and advocacy.