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Toward the elimination of violence and abuse against
Women with Disability (WWD)

May 2009

Summary of the Project
Location of the project: Addis Ababa
Project period: six month
Budget: Total budget of the Project is, 29,300 Et. Birr

Background
In Ethiopia for men and women, expectations of gender roles are different. Especially in traditional society, each gender expected to perform different roles in society. According to different criteria, these roles are determined by historical religious, ideological, ethical, economic and cultural factors. In these societies, men are expected to work out side the house provides support for family, while women are judged according to their physical appearance and their ability to look after her family and home. Traditionally women’s are expected to take responsibility for all domestic chores, entertaining visitors, overseeing celebrations of guests or religious ceremonies in the house and so on.
Many of the issues that are faced by women’s in general in male dominated society also have an impact on women with disability, and they are more likely subjected to violence and discriminating. The available evidence women with Disability in Ethiopia, it is often states that these women’s face a triple handicap and discrimination due to their disability, gender and the country status. In addition, WWD face certain unique disadvantages compared with disabled men. The disability it self is not often mentioned as creating a higher risk for violence, rather it is described as a reason for WWD having problem that lead to violence that women without disability will not have. WWDs can have difficulties in moving around, seeing, communicating and understanding their environment. These difficulties can lead to an increased vulnerability to violence. This violence is caused by:
Lack of knowledge (lack of knowledge in the community causes a variety of situation that increases the vulnerability of the disabled women. This is because they do not know what to do or what the consequences of either disability or their action.)
Lack of education opportunity (many schools in the country are inaccessible to wheelchair user, and access to education for disabled women are completely denied.)
Lack of access to the justice system (after women with disability faced violence, access to justice is limited. This is a combination of a result of lack of knowledge of the families and the police, medical staff, lawyer and judges.)
Cultural attitude toward disability (many people think that a disability in one part of their body means totally inability.)
Regarded being sexually inactive (the society considers them as ‘a-sexual’ or sexually inactive.)
Violence as a result of shame (shame of having a child with a disability is one the cause of violence. Parents try to avoid contact between the disabled women and the rest of the community.)
This implies that women with disabilities are denied the equal opportunities to participate and contributes to their society. It is in this context that women with disability are denied their human rights.
This project is an initiative to enhance the participation of women’s with disability to express their equality to the society.

Problem statement
FHODA has conducted an interview to get information about the situation of women with Disability, as well as the consequence of sexual violence and the social response. Most of the informants reported that during childhood, they were treated by discrimination with the family and friends as a patient that limits their activity. Education was difficult and the school and school materials were not adjusted to their needs. The informants stressed the need of more consideration in regard to their special need in this relation and wanted the society to make education for women with disability a priority area.
Many informants felt that men in the society took advantage of their vulnerable situation and promise to marry them. When the woman got pregnant, the man disappeared and left her to be single mother. Many of the women regarded this as sexual abuse.
When a women with disability is raped by a man without a disability and she report the violence, people think that she is lying and instead she need something from that man. Two young women with physically disability tell “when a girl with a disability is raped, the police men they have to keep our secret, but if you will tell them I am raped by this man, they would not believe us … they will not keep our secret, they will tell to their friends, that girl was raped and they will not go to the police.”
Many Women and their families find that the police and justice system are not supportive of their report. They are not taken seriously when reporting to the police, and more evidence is demanded of them, than in other cases because the stories of women with a disability do not have much weight in court.
In rape cases there is frequently need for witness of the incidence, a prerequisite that is often impossible to fulfill. A woman that has intellectual disability is denied the right to make a statement since they are believed to be unable to know and testify what happened to them.
A single mother with one intellectually disabled child explains, “When I was working us daily laborer how could I bring her with me to my work? If she would have not a disability she would take care of herself but now she has an intellectual disability and I locked her in to the house to prevent her from being raped.” The problem is many people do not believe that rape would be a treat to a woman with a disability or that woman with a disability would have sex-life in their adolescence. One disabled woman explained “people would say if you tell them you are raped, what kind of man would want to sleep with you? …one of our friends was pregnant and the doctor told her; the man who slept with you, he could have slept to a dead body too.” Many of the women that had faced violence told us that they never received information about protecting themselves from sexual violence. The mother of a raped child says: “before this I did not think that any body would rape her, I was just trying to teach her not to get car accident. I thought people would not think about her when it comes to rape, but now I do not trust any body and I learned that I am the only responsible person to protect her.”
There are also innumerable examples of “straight discrimination” that has mentioned by the informants. The interview helped us to realize that gender-based violence and discrimination is the basic challenge that hinders women with disability from achieving their dreams. This violence takes different forms such as: sexual harassment, physical assault, rape, verbal harassment and so on. More over, this challenge has serious repercussions on the lives of disabled women students in their inner psychological make up, in the academic carrier and in their personal life in general.
Another wrong assumption is that people think that no one would want to sleep with women with disability and since they assumed that they are ‘a-sexual’ that they are not affected to HIV AIDS, and as safe sexual partner. The existing of these contradicting ideas on the society and social justice increase the vulnerability of women with disability to rape and other form of violence.

Project Goal
The goal of the project is to create violence free environment for women’s with disability.

Project objective
The over all objective of the project is:
To create a sense of responsibility among the entire community towards ending gender based violence for women with disability;
Pressuring duty-bearers (Polices, judges, teachers, families…) to respond appropriately in order to ensure the protection of women with disability against gender based violence;
To strength the capacity for lobbying to eliminate gender based violence of women with disability
To increase level of assertiveness and power of expression among disabled women
To establish net work and formal procedure in addressing gender based violence for women with disability

Project out comes
20 disabled women’s affected by discrimination will be trained in three workshop
Three discussion forums will be organized involving 200 duty bearers
1 national networking conference will be organized so as to create working relationship among duty bearers toward ending gender-based violence against WWD
The target groups will develop local capacities to claim their rights. They will create their own structure and mechanism for effective participation, to ensure that their voices are heard in decision making. It will enhance the ability of the target group to alter the social context within their communities and negotiate change those who hold power, altering the existing pattern of rights in their favor.

The project will create sustainable communication channel between claim-holders, duty-bearers and the public. Claim-holders and the community will understand human right conventions and policies against violence and discrimination for women with disability. This will help them to asses and analyze their situation and develop their own agenda.
The project will contribute for the development of civil society by making women with disability active participants in the development process. It will also provide a practical experience for the creation of associations and clubs that would promote the right of women with disability.
The achievements will be broadcast to the public using news papers, radio and television program

Project Activities
From the wide spread problem of violence, FHODAA proposed how to eliminate the violence; what legal, social and medical interventions can be implemented. Thus, the following activities are proposed.
Free Legal service:
To protect the violation and to take the violators to justice, FHODA will give free legal service to people with disability. This will help the target groups to be heard in the social justice and will make a change toward the social attitude in large. The lawyer will be employed for six month to give free service for women with disability based on his understanding and experience of issues related to disability.
Dialogue forum:
Dialogue forum is needed for police, medical, personnel and judges to make them aware of issues and more knowledgeable about how to serve individuals with disabilities and the following activities will be carried out.
Developing the capacity of claim-holders (WWD)
Young women and adolescents with disability being affected by social exclusion, vulnerability and rape will be identified from the target groups to be trained and function as mobilizers in their communities throughout the program. During the training they will learn about their rights and to develop appropriate psychology for the change. The training will enable participants to get the necessary information about their right and develop skills of communication and negotiation. In the training, 20 selected target groups will participate in three workshops.
Workshop I, developing action plan
The 1st training will two days workshop that will enable participants learn about their right and understand how claim holders and duty-bearers can be identified in a given right context and in practical approach they will take relevant training. They will also acquire skills that will help them to asses, analyze and act for the realization of their rights. They will develop communication capacity to negotiate change with relevant duty bearers, altering the existing patterns of rights in their favor.
At the end of the training, participants will agree on a definite action plan to be implemented. Possible action plans could include developing programs to express their claims or situations to duty bearer and to the society using drama, organizing public events to mobilize support to their causes, developing strategies for sustainable actions…
Workshop II, implementing the action plan
Participants will implement their action plans with the support of the project facilitators;
They will develop standard messages, educational materials, artistic presentations such us drama, songs, etc to express their claim to duty-bearers
Participants involving rape will organize dialogue forum by inviting relevant duty-bearers such as parents, teachers, police officers, community leaders, judges and members of the public. They will express their claims and hold discussion with duty bearers. Duty bearers will listen and respond to the claims/situation of claim holders
Following the events, participants will evaluate the lessons and achievements of their action. They will re-assess and re-analyze their situation in light of their achievements and develop other activities to express their situation to the public.
Workshop III, Evaluation Workshop
Around the end of the training participants will hold one full day workshop to evaluate their performance and to develop strategies for sustainable actions. They will create their own group/clubs.

Working with Duty-bearers
Although relevant duty-bearers to specific rights/claims will identified in the course of the action by participants /claim-holders, the applicant has identified the following groups as having the responsibility to respect, protect and fulfill the right of women with disability. These duty-bearers are:
- Parents
Local government and non-government offices
Medical personnel
School teachers
Judicial bodies and polices
Civil society organizations
Traditional and religious leaders
Media…
Activities with duty-bearers will include:
I. Introductory forums with duty-bearers
Two forums will be organized involving the identified duty-bearers. The forum will be introductory and awareness building events that will enable participants:
To understand the four strategic principles of PWD, non-discrimination, the right of life, survival and respect with the view of others,
To understand disability and their form of violence,
To understand the basis of their responsibilities and duties toward the situation of women with disabilities from the right based prospective,
To understand the purpose, content and methodology of this project
II. Dialogue between duty-bearers and claim-holders
These forums will focus on encouraging duty-bearers to acknowledge and internalize their duties and make commitments to take legal protection roles for the realization of the right of abused and vulnerable women. The forum will draw the attention of duty-bearers toward all claims that will expressed by the claim-holders. The forum will seek to find out what measures could be taken by participants to address the situation of the claim-holders vulnerable, what capacity gap if any do duty-bearers face to fulfill their responsibilities towards the claim of the right of women with disabilities and how the gap could be met. A total of three forums will be prepared involving 200 duty-bearers. Hence, each forum will be an interactive event that will enhance the motivation of all duty bearers to mobilize local resource to address the issue.
III. Networking conference
The last forum involving duty-bearers and all stake-holders and representative of claim holders will facilitate enhanced local ownership and creation of strong networking and partnership for sustainable actions among all actors and participants.
The forum will address:
Assessing and honoring best practices and achievements,
Draw strategies for sustainable communication between claim-holders and duty-bearers,
Strengthening local networking and partnership among all actors and crating strategies for future actions,
Establishing disability right protection board involving persons from key duty-bearers and claim-holders.
After the completion of these activities, the intended result will be;
It will ensure women affected by disability to be protected entitled to their rights without discrimination;
It will promote the right of disabled women by encouraging access to basic services and equality of opportunity;
It will enable the views and voices of women with disability to be heard and respected and to promote their social participation;
It will monitor local and cultural activities that affect the situation of women with disability

Methodologies
Right based approach
The situation of abused, vulnerable and disadvantaged women with disability will be consider as manifestations of unmet right, therefore, it follows right based approach to enable right holders to claim their right from relevant duty bearers. Beneficiaries will be able to identify claim holders and duty bearers in given right context and understand how to claim their right or respond to their duty. This will be achieved by facilitating a right based communication between beneficiaries as claim holder with relevant duty bearers

Participatory approach
To ensure a high level of participation of beneficiaries is the program, the action will do the following
The discussion forum will analyze a problem which affecting women with disability and use the knowledge and skill planning how to solve the problem and carrying out their plans is a real life setting to address it
Relating the topics with local realties and issues will give participant a sense of ownership if the activities and a commitment to its success
Duty bearers will be aware of the values beliefs challenging and opportunities available to the target group
Making the program simple and entertaining as well as educating will increase interest and participation among participants
Triple A approach
Triple A approach is assessment, analysis and action followed by reassessing, reanalyzing and taking new action. The stake holder will use triple A approach by supporting beneficiaries to asses their situation to analyze it based on knowledge they acquired during the program and propose/take action to change the problem.
10.Monitoring and evaluation
Over all assessment of the program’s efficiency will be conducted and report will be conducted regularly and interim and final report will be periodically prepared
Preparation of questionnaires’ to be disseminated to the beneficiaries of the trainings after which the feed backs would serve as indicators of the achievement of the results
The sustainability of the project achievements and results in the activities of the gender clubs and other disability initiatives
Evaluation on the implementation of the action plans will be held
11.Impact on the environment
The project will have a positive impact on the social environment in creating a favorable environment for women with disability.

Linkages to HIV/AIDS
Gender based violence is one of the causes for spread of HIV/AIDS among women with disability. This is because of their subordination and the gender based violence, they are not able to negotiate for safe sex and also because of their physiology, they are the main victims. Thus enabling women’s with disabilities to be assertive and having confidence to claim their right from the responsible government bodies will contribute to reduce their risk of being infected with HIV/AIDS.

Sustainability
The impact of the project will be sustained through the setting up of appropriate bodies such as permanent clubs and offices, with permanent responsibilities to deal with issues of gender based violence. More over, to ensure the sustainable of the project, FHODA shall provide follow-up and professional/technical support to strengthen the bodies established to stop the violence.
14. Project budget
The break down for the estimated budget for the implementation of the project has been given in the table below.

Budget of the project

Total coast of the project cover, 7,730 US dollar.