By: Nyima Sillah
GADHOH, Female wing of Association for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing has called on the First Lady, Fatoumatta Bah Barrow to give them assistance with funds so that they would be able to organize more training in the area of gender-based violence that can reach their fellows in the rural areas.
Speaking at the Head Office located at Kanifing, Mariama Baldeh, president of GADHOH female wing and a teacher at the Deaf school in Brikama, said: “having seen what is happening in the society against us the deaf people, we would like to call on the First Lady Her Excellency Fatoumatta Bah Barrow to pay attention to us as we feel that we are not given much attention in the society especially on the issues of Gender Based Violence (GBV).”
According to her, sometimes they see programs over the TV but because there are no sign language interpreters to interpret things for them, they don’t understand what information they are sending but only watch over the pictures and read their lips.
She explained that sometimes when she is walking on the streets some men would attempt to take advantage of her because she is deaf, suddenly that they will hold her hand and cover the mouth with intention to rape her.
“These are violence that we constantly face in our societies and as well as in our family settings. Some families discriminate deaf people and this is why in this training we decided to invite some deaf men to train them on the violence that is happening in our societies.”
Lamin M Ceesay, development officer for GADHOH, said “We believe that deaf people do not have enough information when it comes to gender-based violence although we have others at the UTG as well as Gambia College but when it comes to gender-based violence, they are not given the opportunity to learn,” he added.
However, Ceesay applauded the Network Against Gender-Based Violence through Action Aid and their partners for funding the training of 25 young deaf boys and girls on gender-based violence.
“Sometimes we attend workshops, we learn a lot of things but at the end of the day when we want to have step down training, funding is always the problem so that is why we aren’t sharing information with our other members,” he concluded.