Status Of Women With Disabilities In South Asia
Although there is a world-wide trend towards women with disabilities emerging from their isolation to establish their own self help groups and rights groups, the situation in developing countries remains quite different. In the available literature on women with disabilities in developing countries, it is often stated that these women face a triple handicap and discrimination due to their disability, gender and developing world status. In the South Asian context, gender equity is an issue for a large majority of women, given the socio-cultural practices and traditional attitudes of society. Therefore, many of the issues that are faced by women in general in a male dominated society, also have an impact on women with disabilities. In addition, women with disabilities from these countries face certain unique disadvantages compared with disabled men. This paper discusses some of these unique disadvantages that disabled women in developing countries face in comparison with disabled men, and suggests possible strategies to overcome these disadvantages in a community based rehabilitation setting.
INTRODUCTION
There are many illustrations of problems and challenges faced by women with disabilities in literature, but mainly from the developed world (1). Even in the developed countries, where the women’s movement and the disability movement has been active for more than 50 years, women with disabilities tended to be under-represented in decision-making positions. Because of the barriers faced, women with disabilities in the developed countries decided to organise themselves to safeguard their own interests, by starting groups specifically for themselves. In the nineties, women with disabilities were more strongly represented at different levels in the disability movement in the West, and their concerns were also taken into concern at international platforms like the Beijing Women’s Conference in 1995.
Although there is a world-wide trend towards women with...
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