Preparedness of civil society in Botswana to advance disability inclusion in programmes addressing gender-based and other forms of violence against women and girls with disabilities

Abstract

Background: In low-income and middle-income countries women and girls with disabilities are more likely to experience violence than those without disabilities. Non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and disabled people’s organisations (DPOs) can help to address this. However, in countries like Botswana we know little about the preparedness of NGOs and DPOs to increase inclusion in and access to programmes addressing violence.Objectives: To explore the capacity and preparedness of NGOs and DPOs to ensure that women and girls with disabilities can participate in and access programmes addressing violence.Methods: A qualitative study was undertaken using interviews with 17 NGOs and DPOs in Botswana to understand the organisations’ level of and ability to deliver programmes addressing violence against women and girls.Results: Both NGOs and DPOs lack elements of universal design and reasonable accommodation, and thus are inaccessible to some people with disabilities. Some programmes address violence against women but lack skills and resources to accommodate people with disabilities. In contrast, DPOs work with people with disabilities, but lack focus on violence against women with disabilities. Participants identified opportunities to fill these gaps, including adaptation of policies and structural changes, training, approaches to mainstream disability across programmes, development of disability-specific interventions and improved networking.Conclusions: Botswana’s NGOs and DPOs are well positioned to address violence against women and girls with disabilities, but need to increase their accessibility, staff knowledge and skills and disability inclusion. Training, resource allocation and participation of women with disabilities in NGOs and DPOs is needed to drive this change

Intersections between disability, masculinities, and violence: experiences and insights from men with physical disabilities from three African countries

“…Our findings suggest various themes of marginalization and deprivation of men with disabilties in their communities, including stigma and discrimination, environmental barriers, receiving threats of violence from men without disabilties and other people in the community, and experiencing emotional abuse especially from men without disabilities. Hence contrasting to work with women with disabilities, men with disabilities report threats, verbal and physical abuse by people outside their household and emotional abuse within their housholds and not the same level of sexual and intimate partner violence as women with disabilities have reported in similar studies [ 41 – 45 ].…”

Violencia hacia mujeres con discapacidad: una revisión de la literatura

“…En el caso de personas con discapacidad intelectual, Nieuwenhuis et al ( 2019) recogen una tasa de un 50,9 % en una muestra de pacientes con enfermedades mentales graves y discapacidad intelectual. En general, los estudios coinciden en que la violencia física suele aparecer asociada a otros tipos de violencia (Hanass-Hancock et al, 2020), y habitualmente no suele ser denunciada (Fanslow et al, 2021), por lo que probablemente su prevalencia sea más elevada (Valentine et al, 2019).…”

“…Supone un grave problema social y de salud, especialmente en aquellos países con altos niveles de pobreza. Un estudio realizado en Botsuana informa globalmente de graves lesiones físicas, problemas de salud sexual y reproductiva y deterioro en la salud mental de las mujeres con discapacidad (Hanass-Hancock et al, 2020). El género es un factor determinante de riesgo, pues sitúa a las mujeres con discapacidad en posiciones de gran vulnerabilidad dentro de sus familias como posibles víctimas de abuso sexual o de cualquier otro tipo de maltrato, debido a las desigualdades de género, a las normas culturas basadas en modelos androcéntricos y a la falta de control sobre sus propios derechos (Jones, 2021;Levine et al, 2018).…”

“…personal médico, judicial, policial) no suelen tener formación especializada para adaptarse a las necesidades de estas mujeres con discapacidad (e.g. conocimientos sobre cómo dirigirse a ellas o cómo identificar y abordar las situaciones de violencia) (Hanass-Hancock et al, 2020;Namatovu et al, 2022;Ruiz-Pérez et al, 2018;Vellaz Zamorano et al, 2021). A lo anterior se añade el hecho de la mayor dependencia económica de su pareja y familia, situación en la que se encuentra un porcentaje muy elevado de estas mujeres, que hace que sea más complicado el poder salir de este tipo de relaciones y romper el círculo de la violencia (Fanslow et al, 2021).…”

The ontology and epistemology shaping our understanding of inclusion: A critical review of the research literature on disability and inclusion

“…Feature 2: Overrepresentation of high-income countries in published literature in English As indicated in Figure 3, high-income countries were overrepresented as the origins of research published in English. Some authors addressed this directly in their studies (Aguilar, 2017;Drew et al, 2011;Emerson & Spencer, 2015;Hanass-Hancock et al, 2017;Hanass-Hancock et al, 2020;Jones et al, 2021;Shields-Zeeman et al, 2020). Research was produced across all continents except Antarctica.…”