Institute for Community Development Trust (ICOD) conducted a research on the impact of COVID-19 on Women With Disabilities (WWDs) in Masvingo Urban, Zimbabwe. Despite the surging Coronavirus being universal, its impacts and effects have proved not to be the same across different socio-economic divides. The ICOD Zim observed that vulnerable social groups in low-income countries include disabled, women, unemployed orphans and other minority groups. The assessments done by the ICOD Zim confirmed that people with disabilities (PWDs) top the list of vulnerable groups to impacts of COVID-19.
The WWDs are a social group which is usually ignored and marginalized in many socio-economic and political platforms. Therefore, the study took a unique dimension and interrogated the WWDs lived experiences during the lockdown caused by the outbreak of COVID-19. The experiences scrutinized include domestic abuses, pronounced ostracism, infringed human rights, lack of access to adequate healthcare services and food.
To improve the welfare of WWDs the ICOD Zim is engaging the Government of Zimbabwe, concerned and active stakeholders in making sure that WWDs are given adequate information on mitigating and managing the spread of COVID-19 virus. These stakeholders must establish and implement vibrant awareness campaigns so as to educate guardians, WWDs and their caregivers on how best to reduce chances of increasing infections in households.
The ICOD Zim further recommends that;
- Appropriate health care provisions should be made available for WWDs especially their SRHR during the #lockdown period.
- The government and NGO’s should complement each other in making sure that the quarantine centres have all the adequate amenities to cater for WWDs with complicated physical and biological conditions.
- The government should also allocate land to WWDs so that they depend on themselves and avoid suffering especially during unforeseen periods like COVID-19 outbreak.
- At international level, the leaders should make efforts to revise the SDGs after the pandemic and include some novel lessons learnt from this coronavirus.
Read the full research report here (506KB PDF)
Source: Institute for Community Development Trust (ICOD)
