People with disabilities face severe difficulties in issues around sexual and reproductive health. Lanieta Tuimabu was speaking at the 15th Triennial Conference of Pacific Women which focussed on climate change, gender-based violence and the health of women and girls in the region.
Their access to clinics, information and assistance continues to be a challenge because of specific barriers for groups of people living with impairments. Some of those barriers, said Tuimabu, are created by health workers:
“When you come in (to clinics) and they say - Oh, you have a disability. In their minds we are not sexually active – that is the mindset. And then there are institutional barriers, like policies, standard operating procedures. We need to start with the issue of access.’’
A needs assessment conducted by the UNFPA, Women Enable and the Pacific Disability Forum in three Pacific countries showed that individual disability groups faced specific barriers when accessing sexual and reproductive health assistance.
“It may be that they face difficulty gaining physical access to a clinic and at other times it might be attitudinal barriers (from the staff),” Tuimabu said.
“Even within the wider disability community different impairment groups - the deaf community, blind and visually impaired, psychosocial, intellectual disability face different barriers.” Tuimabu said.
The assessment looked particularly at sexual and reproductive health of young women and girls with disabilities in Fiji, Samoa and Vanuatu.
In Fiji, the assessment showed, women and young people with disabilities faced significant barriers that hindered their full and effective participation in society on an equal basis with others.
The report revealed that they were “prevented from fully realizing their sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR) and their rights to legal capacity and to be free of gender-based violence (GBV)’’.
It said many women and young people with disabilities only received basic information about their sexual and reproductive health and lacked access to facilities which were often not disability inclusive.
“As a result, those who do seek SRH services report feeling judged or receiving unfair treatment by service providers,’’ the report said.
“In particular, women and young people with disabilities usually find that, instead of receiving accessible information to make their own SRH decisions, service providers and family members make medical decisions on their behalf.’’
Tuimabu called on the 15th Triennial Conference of Pacific Women to recognize stigma, abusive medical care and lack of information often prevented young women with disabilities from receiving sexual and reproductive health care.
This, she said, limited their potential for advancement and justice.
“Women with disabilities have the right to access sexual and reproductive health,’’ she said.
Tuimabu said it was important for the region to adopt policies which ensures that women and young girls with disabilities could access information, treatment and facilities with dignity.
The UNFPA-assisted said women and young people with disabilities were typically discouraged from talking about or reporting gender-based violence. It said that when the matters were reported, police and the judiciary often disregarded the complaints, referring them to informal reconciliation procedures.
This has led to high rates of impunity and perpetuated the cycle of violence.
A Cook Islands delegate suggested that governments provide health services to people with disabilities in their homes to improve accessibility.
Tuimabu described the approach as shallow.
“It is an option for those who are not mobile. Or those who need 24/7 health care. But we want the services to be inclusive,’’ she said.
“Inclusivity means that a person living with a disability can go to any hospital, go there and access the same service as everybody else. That's empowerment, that’s inclusivity.’’
Delegates also discussed the outcomes of the UNFPA Report on Women and Young People with Disabilities.
The report recommended that adequate resources be provided to allow accessibility of SRH and GBV services for people with diverse disabilities.
Also recommended was development of a network of accessible shelters and safe houses to facilitate better access to protective services outside of urban centers.
