WELFARE OF WOMEN AND GIRLS WITH DISABILITIES IN ZAMBIA

This memorandum is being submitted to the Parliament of Zambia with the invitation from the Committee on National Guidance and Gender Matters on the welfare of women and girls with disabilities in Zambia. As we make this submission, we wish to bring to the attention of the Committee the generally accepted language of addressing persons with disabilities is as just stated here without including the terminology “living”. Therefore, the group being addressed in this memorandum should be referred to as “women and girls with disabilities’ and not ‘women and girls living with disabilities’.

Disability Rights Watch (DRW) totally agrees with the understanding of the Committee on National Guidance and Gender Matters in that, in deciding to investigate the subject matter, the Committee considered the fact that women and girls with disabilities are one of the most vulnerable and invisible sections of society in Zambia. The Committee went on to observe that invisibility, stigma and marginalization of women and girls with disabilities are exacerbated by age and the type of disability, leading to multiple discrimination and violence often perpetrated by those closest to them. Memorandum_to_Committee_on N G_and_Gender_Matters_Jan 2022