#4: International Day of Persons with Disabilities!

This week, we'll be understanding the role of WASH in increased health and safety for women with regard to SDG 5, SDG 6, and SDG 3! Everyday, and even more so on International Day of Persons with Disabilities today, we must help raise the voices of disabled individuals who are often left behind in the fight for equality, empowerment, and, development. Therefore, I will be focusing this blog around WASH access for disabled women in Africa, incorporating SDG 10, to raise these individuals' voices!

The issue:
WASH is essential for a healthy and dignified life, yet by the end of the Millennium Development Goals (MDG), MDG 7c's target, relating to sanitation (UN 2000), was not met (Roche et al. 2017). Furthermore, MDGs did not account for some of the most vulnerable people's basic needs and, thus, fundamentally did not recognise or address this group appropriately. These are disabled individuals. Such inadequacy created an even wider development gap between disabled and able-bodied individuals, especially disabled women.

Africa has the highest population growth rate and Sub-Saharan Africa’s (SSA) population of ~1.1 billion is expected to double by 2050 (UN 2019).

Yet, of SSA’s population...

• 42% do not have access to a basic water supply
• 72% (over 340 million people) have no access to basic sanitation
• 65% depend on open in-situ sanitation, commonly pit latrines

Incorporating a more intersectional lens, how do the 80-300 million disabled people living in Africa access sanitation facilities?  -These figures by the UN and WHO differ significantly, mostly due to unrecorded: births; low school enrolment (10-15%), and high unemployment rates (70-80%) for disabled people; and how disabled people are stigmatised, sometime's leading to community exclusion and parent abandonment (Trani 2020; Kelsey2013).

Lydia, living in the Slovo Park informal settlement, south Johannesburg, explains some of her difficulties:

A study into disabled peoples WASH facility use in rural Mali, where 88% of household water is retrieved from open well sources, showed (Norman 2010):

• 95% of disabled people accessed water from open wells, proving incredibly difficult for those who must sit to collect water or when the ground was wet/muddy
• 44% of disabled women had never fetched water, this is relatively low due to women's reproductive gender roles, even when disabled, having to fetch water
• 48% found transporting water hard due to spillage and difficulty lifting containers onto their heads, specifically open metal buckets which are harder to grasp
• Of the 5% using hand-pumps, only 6% could use the hand-pump themselves
• 62% needed assistance to bathe
• <60% of households said they had no latrine

In general, when accessing shared toilets, women are more vulnerable to sexual assault, physical assault, and an increased risk of disease due to methods of defecation/urination, such as having to squat rather than stand as men can (WaterAid 2017). Some women even consume less during the day so they don't have to use the toilet as often or wait until the night, which is also dangerous (Danquah 2014)! These all have a negative impact on women's socio-economic development and empowerment as these lower potential in living healthy dignified lives. When applying these facts to disabled women, their experiences are even worse...

For example, women with limited use of their hands suffer to carry out 'simple' tasks, such as cleaning themselves after defecation and during menstruation, resulting in poorer hygiene and an increased risk of infections and water-borne disease and increased stigmatisation through period shaming (Norman 2010). Below, a rural Malian woman with severe leg deformities demonstrates how she must use latrines:

There is a stigma of disabled women not being attractive in Africa, yet, overall, in West Africa, it's widely traditionally held sexual relations and marriage (where a high proportion of rape and sexual assault occurs) with a disabled woman will bring a man special powers (Norman 2010). This causes, disabled women to be more vulnerable to sexual abuse, especially when accessing far away WASH facilities alone, but also to not be believed when such assault does occur and never get the justice they deserve (VOA News 2020).

There is hope!

SDGs affirm "leave no one behind" by recognising disabled people's needs within SDG legislature - SDG 10 visibly recognises disabled individuals! There is also a growing body of discourse addressing the sanitation needs of people with disabilities in Africa (Norman 2010; Jones and Wilbur 2014; Danquah 2014; White et al. 2016)! Jones and Wilbur (2014) provide accessible WASH technology examples (shown below) that are used in participatory development sanitation schemes (PDSS).

A moveable seat diagram and incorporated hand pump handle and seat, see more examples here!

PDSS's combine citizen input into water resource governance and management (Cleaver 2016) to provide a solution for improved water access! Musara lives Zimbabwe's Mbire district where UNICEF and World Vision, among others, have initiated accessible WASH solutions! Listen to Musara's story below:

As the video highlights, not only have disabled people been empowered, the 7,725 people in Mbire have benefitted from improved WASH facilities.

Besides SDG 5 and SDG 6 improving through such WASH access, SDG 3 and SDG 10 have also been uplifted through increasing wellbeing and recognising the needs of disabled individuals. As seen above, this has an additional positive effect on the rest of communities! Therefore, adequate accessible WASH facilities are the way forward specifically in disabled women's empowerment and development and, further, entire communities!