5 days ago
Women's Month and the silenced voices of disabled women: A global and South African reckoning
SEDIBENG.- Women's Month is often reflected as a celebration of resilience, leadership, and progress.
In South Africa, it commemorates the 1956 march of 20,000 women to the Union Buildings in Tshwane, protesting the apartheid regime's pass laws. This is also seen as a historic act of defiance that laid the foundation for gender justice. Yet, amid the speeches, campaigns, and corporate slogans, one group remains consistently overlooked: disabled women.
Their voices, particularly within the disability and gender sectors, are often drowned out by ableist assumptions, patriarchal neglect, and systemic exclusion.
Globally and locally, disabled women continue to face profound violations of their rights. Among the most egregious is forced sterilisation, a practice that persists not as a relic of the past but as a present-day human rights crisis.
Across continents, disabled girls and women are sterilised without their consent, often under the guise of 'protection,' 'menstrual management,' or 'incapacity to parent.' These justifications are steeped in eugenic ideologies and patriarchal control, where disabled bodies are deemed unfit for reproduction.
The practice is not only medically unethical, it is a violent denial of reproductive justice.
In South Africa, reports from the Commission for Gender Equality (CGE) and civil society organisations have exposed cases where disabled and HIV-positive women were sterilised in public hospitals without informed consent. Despite the Sterilisation Act of 1998, which criminalises non-consensual sterilisation, enforcement remains weak, and accountability elusive.
The law exists, but justice does not.
This is not just a medical issue, it is a political failure. It reflects the inability of states to uphold the rights of disabled women, and the broader societal belief that some women are less worthy of autonomy, dignity, and motherhood. Forced sterilisation is not a one-time procedure, it is a lifelong sentence. It strips disabled women of their reproductive agency, undermines their identity, and reinforces societal narratives that they are incapable of nurturing, loving, or leading.
The psychological trauma, compounded by social stigma, often leads to isolation, depression, and diminished self-worth.
These women are not only denied the right to parent, they are denied the right to be seen as full human beings. Their bodies become battlegrounds for control, their futures shaped by decisions made without their voice.
Politically, forced sterilisation entrenches exclusion. Disabled women are denied the right to participate fully in society, not just as mothers, but as citizens. Their absence from leadership roles, employment, and policy-making spaces is not incidental; it is the result of systemic erasure.
As Lana Roy from Afrika Tikkun notes, disabled women face a 'double burden: gender and disability discrimination,' often being the last considered and the first ignored.
This double marginalisation is compounded by race, class, and geography, making disabled women in rural and impoverished areas even more vulnerable.
Globally, disabled women's movements have rallied under the banner 'Nothing About Us Without Us,' demanding inclusion in policy and advocacy. In South Africa, women like Lungi Mkwani, qualified, skilled, and determined, continue to be denied employment due to ableist hiring practices. Their stories expose the gap between rhetoric and reality during Women's Month celebrations.
Organisations like the Her Rights Initiative and Afrika Tikkun are working to amplify these voices, offering support, vocational training, and platforms for advocacy. But systemic change requires more than charity, it demands political will, legal reform, and cultural transformation.
We must move beyond tokenism and performative inclusion. Disabled women must be at the centre of policy design, healthcare reform, and employment equity. Their lived experiences must inform the laws that govern their bodies and futures.
To honour Women's Month authentically, we must confront uncomfortable truths. Celebrating women's empowerment while ignoring the sterilisation of disabled girls is not progress, it is hypocrisy. Inclusion must be radical, intersectional, and unapologetic.
Disabled women are not passive victims, they are agents of resistance. Their stories, often buried beneath layers of discrimination, must be unearthed and amplified. As we mark Women's Month, let it be a call not just to celebrate, but to reckon.
To dismantle the systems that sterilise, silence, and sideline, and to build a future where every woman, regardless of ability, is free to choose, to lead, and to thrive.
(Lucky Tumahole is a Diabled Persons Advocate, and the above is his opinion)
