WUNRN:
WITCHCRAFT ACCUSATIONS - VIOLENCE & TORTURE - UN Human Rights Council 25 Panel
WITCHCRAFT ACCUSATIONS - RIGHTS ABUSES OF WOMEN & GIRLS WITH DISABILITIES
By Stephanie Ortoleva, Esq., President and Founder, Women
Enabled, Inc. - www.WomenEnabled.org
As we consider the impact of accusations of ‘witchcraft and violence against women and girls, I implore you to include our forgotten sisters, women and girls with disabilities. We are women too!
Several recent reports of Rashida Manjoo, UN Special rapporteur on Violence Against Women, focused on various aspects of these issues: gender-related killings are the extreme manifestation of existing forms of violence against women…Culturally and socially embedded; the impact of the multiple and intersecting dimensions of women’s lives on violence and discrimination; and women with disabilities experience violence more frequently than other women, often for a longer period of time and that this violence may take on unique forms, causes and consequences. Guarantees of the rights of women with disabilities are embedded in the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women and the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. In light of the myriad impacts of some traditional myths and cultural views of disability, combined with attitudes toward women in general, women with disabilities are in a double bind. These linkages must be addressed from a gender-sensitive, disability-inclusive approach.
The notion that disability is a “curse” and that people with
disabilities are “possessed” or “evil” and the societal views of women as
“witches” or “demonic,” persists today, with origins dating from 1485 and earlier. Murder
of women with disabilities as witches is highlighted as a human rights
violation by Philip Alston, Former UN Special
rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions. The medieval notion that one can identify a
“witch” by the fact that her offspring are children with disabilities still
persists and having an offspring with a disability is seen as a “curse” on the
mother for some alleged “wrongdoing” or breach of a societal taboo. Mothers in
Sometimes the real causes for seeing disabled women as
“witches” or “possessed” are seeing them as a scapegoat for another’s illness,
death or a bad harvest. The
dual “curse” of being a girl child and a disabled girl child at that is reason
enough – thus, labeling her as “cursed” or a “demon” and killing her serves as a rationale to
eliminate a perceived dual “burden” of a “useless” girl disabled child.
Women and girls who challenge accepted socio-cultural norms, traditions, perceptions and stereotypes about femininity and the role, behavior and status of women in society are often labeled with psychosocial disabilities and, thus, as “witches.” As a mechanism of control, they frequently are subjected to forced psychiatric interventions and treatment that are harmful and deprive them of legal capacity and autonomy, resulting in the erasure of personhood, which is often the objective in the first place. In other cases, she is being punished for refusing sexual advances or challenging the authority of community elders or because the disabled woman is participating in grass root politics to fight for her rights or as “punishment” to the woman for being a rebel.
Sometimes labeling her as a “witch” is just a blatant falsehood perpetuated simply because she has some property others want for their own. Special Rapporteur Alston notes that women and girl children with albinism are hunted and killed based on superstitious beliefs that their skin or body parts transmit magical powers which bring good health or prosperity. One colleague told me that she was followed in her village for this very reason and she feared for her life. In other cases, they are killed based on the belief that they are evil or cursed. It just depends…
Of course, many other violations also cross borders and cultures based on traditional values regarding the value of the lives of women with disabilities, cloaked in notions of “witchcraft” or “curse” and due to both gender and disability-specific harmful traditional practices, women with disabilities are more discriminated against, violated, marginalized and exploited. States have a due diligence responsibility to take systematic action, reflecting both disability and gender sensitive approaches, to modify or eliminate stereotypes and negative, harmful and discriminatory practices and attitudes. Both approaches are required under the CEDAW and the CRPD. Additionally, to ensure that the rights of women and girls with disabilities are included as we embark on this discussion, the international women’s rights movement must include our sisters with disabilities in analysis and advocacy. If you would like to explore these ideas further, please contact me at President@WomenEnabled.org. Thank you.
Resources:
Stephanie Ortoleva & Hope Lewis: “Forgotten Sisters - A Report on Violence against Women with Disabilities: & Overview of Its Nature, Scope, Causes & Consequences,” available at: http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2133332.
Rashida Manjoo, Special Rapporteur on
Violence Against Women, Report of the Special Rapporteur on Violence Against
Women, Its Causes and Consequences, Report on Violence Against Women with
Disabilities, U.N. Doc. A/67/227 (August 3, 2012), available at: http://www.un.org/ga/search/view_doc.asp?symbol=A%2F67%2F227+&Submit=Search&Lang=E
Rashida Manjoo, UN Special Rapporteur on Violence Against Women, Report
to the Human Rights Council: Gender-Related Killings of Women, 23 May 2012, A/HRC/20/16,
available
at:
http://www.ohchr.org/Documents/Issues/Women/A.HRC.20.16_En.pdf
Rashida
Manjoo, Special Rapporteur on Violence against Women, Report of the Special
Rapporteur on Violence against Women, its Causes and Consequences, (considering
multiple and intersecting forms of discrimination) U.N. Doc. A/HRC/17/26 (May
2, 2011), available at
http://www2.ohchr.org/english/bodies/hrcouncil/docs/17session/A-HRC-17-26.pdf
Philip Alston, UN Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions, REPORT TO THE Human Rights council, 27 May 2009, A/HRC/11/2
27, available at: http://www2.ohchr.org/english/bodies/hrcouncil/docs/.../A.HRC.11.2.pdf.
U.N.
High Comm’r for Human Rights, Women’s Rights and Gender Section, Responses
to the Note Verbale on Human Rights Council Resolution 17/11: "Violence
against women and girls and disability,” http://www2.ohchr.org/english/issues/women/docs/A.HRC.20.5.pdf.
Convention on the
Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women, G.A. Res. 34/180, U.N.
Doc. A/RES/34/180 (Dec. 18, 1979), available at http://www.unhcr.org/refworld/docid/3ae6b3970.html.
Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, G.A. Res. 61/106, U.N. Doc. A/RES/61/106 (Dec. 13, 2006), available at