WHEN women’s groups and all those who desire to uplift the socio-economic status of women and girls call for women empowerment, they do so knowing fully well that these people have an important role to play in national development.
In fact women’s rights activists strongly believe that empowering women to be key change agents is essential to achieving the end of hunger and poverty in the country.
If women are supported and empowered, they argue, all of society benefits. Families of empowered women, meanwhile, look healthier, their children go to school, agricultural productivity improves, while incomes increase and so on and so forth.
In many cases, this picture by and large describes able-bodied women and girls while their disabled counterparts are not so much talked about.
Yet disabled women are even more likely to be poorer than both the disabled men and non-disabled women. Some non-governmental organisations link these women’s poverty to their very limited opportunities for education and skills development, which could be more easily available to able-bodied women.
And the situation is likely to be even worse for rural women with disabilities, as rural women and girls are very often confronted with such specific issues as lack of transportation, hunger and malnutrition, lack of access to credit, education and any empowerment facilities.
Other challenges likely to face disabled rural women and girls are a lack of land ownership as well as transfer of property, payment for farm labour, and access to technology meant to foster efficient production.
The Government, through the Ministry of Gender, therefore, deserves commendation for presenting a K4,000 cheque as part of its women empowerment efforts to the Singani Women Club for the Disabled in Choma, Southern Province.
According to the club’s chairperson Lena Munkombwe, the money is meant to buy chicken feed and chemicals for 350 chicks the club will further be given by the Government.
The club comprises physically challenged women who, despite their condition, have been looking after equally physically challenged children and orphans.
We join Ms Munkombwe in openly expressing our joy over the development when she says: “As a club for disabled women, we are happy with the support of 350 chicks that the Government wants to give us which will help us massively to generate income.”
The club was formed four years ago and, looking at the condition of its members and what they have been doing for the underprivileged children, Ms Munkombwe is right when she says her club needs massive support from various stakeholders.
Such support should be in form of cash handouts or material gifts as the Government is already doing, or can be anything which will lead to empowering these women with disabilities.
We also feel that these women, who are doing so much for humanity in spite of their physical condition, should have access to other support services and systems which they need in order to participate in training workshops.
Further, stakeholders should come on board and help the Government promote more sustained and accelerated efforts to empower women and girls with disabilities in rural areas and, in the process, increase their rate of participation in decision-making processes. OPINION