HIV/Aids and disability

This disease is an unrecognized problem for disabled people worldwide

By Kelvin Hazangwi, NASCOH

18. November 2004

As the global community braces for the World Aids Day on the 1st of December 2004, it is still watching the growing alarming rates of the disease, which is marching on inexorably in the East, and South Asia, in Africa and in Zimbabwe in particular. A key group that is being largely ignored overlooked in the efforts to stop the spread of HIV/AIDS is the global population of some 600million people who live with a physical, sensory, intellectual or mental health disability. The special needs of people with disabilities need to be urgently addressed in AIDS awareness programmes if the worrying rate of infection is to be curbed.

According to the IRIN News, (8/12/2004) More than In Zimbabwe about 1,2 million people are living with disabilities, of which 300 000 are HIV positive. The instructions for use of condoms have never been distributed in Braille for people with visual impairments and no attempts have been made to advertise condoms in sign language for those with hearing difficulties, according to Mr. Farai Gasa Mukuta, the Executive Director of the National Association of Societies for the Care of the Handicapped (NASCOH). NASCOH, an umbrella body representing organizations of and for people with disabilities has produced a video and an audiotape on HIV/AIDS in an attempt to address the information gap.

It also developed two tapes, “An HIV/AIDS Sign Language Vocabulary and “Dancing with Danger” in an attempt to package information in a way that will appeal to the needs of the disabled. The sign language vocabulary is a compilation of 69 terms associated with HIV/AIDS, while ‘Dancing with Danger’ is a video drama that tackles the issues of sexuality, sexual abuse and HIV/AIDS among the disabled, enacted in sign language with a voice –over for the blind.

Mr. Mukuta reiterated that contrary to popular belief that people with disabilities had no sex lives and therefore were not at risk of contracting HIV, most of people with disabilities are sexually active. However, in many cases, the disabled did not have access to sufficient sex education to protect themselves. He further noted that the vulnerability of the disabled to HIV infection was worsened by poverty. Because people with disabilities are amongst the most marginalized, every major risk factor linked to infection is also present in the disabled populations. They are more likely than their no-disabled peers to live in poverty, to be illiterate and to be unemployed.

“Disabled women often struggle to make ends meet and you find able bodied men taking advantage of them…The women have to resort to using their bodies for transactional sex and this increases their risk of HIV infection.” This is against a background where the government grant in Zimbabwe, to people with disabilities is $15, 00 (less than US$3) per month.

Overlooking the threat of HIV/AIDS to disabled populations is one of the most dramatic forms of exclusion they face, there is the larger situation that disabled people are largely invisible in their communities, and are largely overlooked in efforts by the global development community to improve the human welfare and living standards of millions of the world’s poor people. It is important for policymakers and development practitioners alike to realize that, with roughly 10 percent of the world’s population living with one form of disability or another, disability components must be built in all development projects.

Historically focus has been on preventing disability, which is very important, , but humankind, will continue to make people became disabled, whether it is through accidents or war. Thrust should be on helping to remove the stigma that is attached to disability. People need to know that disability is diversity in God’s creation, and we are all potentially disabled, disability is not a punishment for some past wrong as many people seems to think. I continue to count solely on development agencies to bring the disabled into the mainstream of development, so as to shine some light on the needs and solutions of people living with disabilities.