By: Nyima Sillah
Member of Serrekunda Women with Disabilities Association, Jarrai Jabbie, enunciated that any woman with a disability is a victim of double marginalization.
“Being a Woman alone is marginalization and to be a woman with a disability is double marginalization. Looking at the vulnerability of our gender and the challenges we face to be inclusive is disheartening,” Jarrai told The Voice in an interview on Monday.
She explained that women with a disability still face various challenges in The Gambia because they don’t have good places to stay, even buy land to build their own houses. She added that even when searching for houses to rent it is another issue because many landlords are not ready to give houses to any woman in wheelchairs thus they question their ability to pay rent.
“We have the right to live in good houses and a comfortable place, but all this is challenging. We only get a good house if we pay an agent or assign someone that is physically able to do the search on our behalf which is not right,”
Jabbie pointed out that most of the persons with disability venture into business but making that business flourish is challenging they don’t have support despite depending on business to feed their families.
“This is not our aim, and we don’t wish to sit in the street and wait for people to give us what to feed our families. We want to work like everyone else. We have different disabilities but our minds are not disabled if we have good places and financial support, we will make the best use of it,” she argued.
Isatou Gano stated that the voices of women with disability are not heard, they need someone to represent them on the decision-making table and are not given the position to lead which is making it hard for their issues to be addressed.
“If the election is fast approaching, they need us, but if the elections pass, they forget us. We currently don’t have a single representative in the parliament. We don’t have any support from either the government, neither from the women activists,” she claimed.
Explaining societal challenges, Gano lamented that the majority of persons with disabilities face challenges in getting married as when they get a proposal, the family of the man discourages them from marrying them and if they go ahead and marry them, the marriage does not last.
Angela Muruli, the Programme Coordinator for UN Women’s West and Central Africa Regional Office said, there are no strong laws that work to call out violence against persons with disabilities, noting that UN women have structures to support women with disabilities as they will work on the representation of these women living with disabilities.
“We are putting up strategies by working with women’s rights organizations who represent persons with disabilities and their advocacy is presented. We also work to strengthen legislation that criminalizes violent discrimination based on disability.