Joe Effiong, Uyo
Women are generally regarded as weaker and vulnerable sex compared to their male counterparts. And when they suffer one form of physical disability or another, their case is considered even worse.
These precarious situations are what led to the emergence of Project Alert, a non-governmental organisation which has taken up the responsibility of fighting against all forms of gender-based violence and discrimination especially as it concerns women with disabilities.
The organisation recently conducted a survey on gender-based violence and women with disabilities in Akwa Ibom and Cross River states and came up with a damning result.
For a proper understanding, gender-based violence (GBV), according to the organisation; “is any act that results in or is likely to result in physical, sexual and mental harm or suffering to women, including threat of such act, coercion, or arbitrary deprivation of liberty whether occurring in public or private life. Forms of GBV include physical, sexual and psychological, verbal, verbal, harmful traditional practices and financial strangulation.
“In Nigeria, one out of every five women and girls aged 15-24 years has been a victim of one form of violence or the other where an estimated 80.2 million women and girls have significantly worse life chances than men.”
Zeroing in on Akwa Ibom and Cross River States where the survey was conducted, the body said “women with disabilities are subjected to social exclusion in form of socio-economic disadvantage, social isolation, poor process to social services, poor housing, inadequate health care, denial of opportunities to contribute to and participate in the political and economic development.”
Founder and executive director Project, Dr Josephine Effah-Chukwuma, told Niger Delta Chronicle that her 20-year-old organisation have achieved a lot in terms of creating awareness among the woman with regard GBV and women with disabilities.
She said the organisation decided to come to her state of origin, Cross River State and also include Akwa Ibom, to partner another organisation, Friends of the Needy Organisation (FONO), led by Mrs Eme Atakpo, which has been working on issues of people with disabilities for a long time in the area to launch the campaign since the two sister states have similar cultural orientation.
The Project Alert conducted both qualitative and quantitative studies on women with disabilities in order to get first-hand information from them.
She lamented that the issue of disability is getting worse in Nigeria because of the increasing incidence of terrorism where people are daily maimed.
“It is not an Akwa Ibom or Cross River thing only. Is a nationwide thing. The difference is that other states like Lagos state, the state government is quite responsive. The disability law has been put in place. An agency had been set up as far back as 2011; the disability law was passed. To implement the law they set up an agency charged with the responsibility of implementing that law which includes identifying, creating awareness, telling traditional and religious rulers to identify people with disability in their congregations. Let them come and register.
“So that is the first thing Akwa Ibom and Cross River need to do. First, we need to know how many people are with disability even in our State. We need to make sure there are schools where they can access. Banks, government offices must be disability-friendly; hospitals, everywhere must be friendly. And if government had done that, we can turn to private corporations. But if they have not done that, then they don’t have the moral high ground to come and run around on the private business when they themselves have not done it. We want the two states to wake up.
“People should stop maltreating people with disabilities. People should stop abusing them; people should recognise that they are human beings. They should know that disability can come to anybody any day, anytime. Government should do what it has to do. We’ve shared it with CAN to tell them that persons with disability can’t go to church because of no access. We need that sensitization and consciousness. We are denying them their right to worship. We have done our own as NGO: go to the root, get the problems, put them together, create awareness to it and everyone has a role to play.”
The result of the studies as made available to Niger Delta Chronicle indicated that in the two states, the three commonest forms of disability in the communities studied were the physically challenge, visually impaired and hearing impaired, while the commonest forms of violence against people with disabilities were domestic violence, such as beating, verbal abuse, neglect and abandonment; sexual abuse (rape) and discrimination.
The Akwa Ibom State chairman of Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN), Dr. Ndueso Ekwere, who represented by the state secretary of the association, Dr Emmanuel Ebitu, pledged CAN’s readiness to reach out to churches statewide for effective sensitisation and change of attitude of members of the public toward people with disabilities.