Women with disabilities, on Tuesday, urged political parties to offer waivers for them in the forthcoming 2023 general elections so that they can be part of the decision-making process in governance and to have more persons with disabilities in elective positions.
The women with disabilities equally decried the rising cases of discrimination in homes, workplaces and marriages, noting that women with disabilities find it difficult to get men to marry them due to their respective conditions.
The persons with disabilities, under the women’s wing of Joint National Association of Persons With Disabilities (JONAPWD), made the remarks at a press briefing to mark the international women’s day in Benin City.
Ann Ojugo, chairperson of the association, clamored for inclusion and representation of women with disabilities in government so that they can be part of the policy-making process in matters that affect them and the development of the country.
“We, women and girls with disabilities, continue to suffer social and cultural discrimination amid other structural and technical barriers placed on us by the society. If you take statistics, people with disabilities who are educated are more of the men than the women. People don’t train women, and it is a double tragedy for us,” Ojugo said.
The chairperson, who said the association is much interested in ensuring that they are included in political activities, opined that if a person with disability is well known in a political party and can deliver, such person should not be discriminated against based on his or her physical status.
“Honestly speaking, we don’t have the money to sponsor our people. The government can sponsor us to make sure that we get to where we are going to. It is high time we took part in politics. We should vote and be voted for. We want to enjoin women with disabilities to also involve themselves in politics because very soon, we shall be having local government elections in Edo State and we want women to take part in it.
“We want political parties to enroll women with disabilities in their party and give them elective positions either by electing them as local government chairmen, councilors among others,” she added.
She, however, claimed that they decided to celebrate the women’s day on a later date different from the March 8 set aside to commemorate the international women’s day because women with disabilities were sidelined from the activities scheduled during the period.
“The event was celebrated March 8 but most women in Nigeria who marked the day didn’t remember to invite us, women with disabilities. You can hardly find women of our physical status among them. So, we decided to celebrate ours on another day. More so, we were also affected by lack of finance because we needed money to facilitate the transportation of members from across the 18 local government areas.
“Women were busy organising programs, while women of our physical status were not included. There are discrimination from all ramifications. Our challenges are enormous. Most of us live our whole life with the title of ‘miss’ even in our 50s, 60s, 80s because we are so discriminated against that men don’t think of marrying us. How many men can take the bold step to marry us?” she asked.
