Women with disabilities face threats, insults on political trail

Hamisa Zaja planted trees in a school in Mombasa County. Hamisa Zaja in one of her campaigns Rose Museo during campaigns in Makueni. [Rose Mukonyo, Standard]

Hamisa Zaja, a person with a disability (PWD), is vying for the post of Woman Representative in Mombasa County for the second time after losing her bid in the 2017 general election. 

Ms Zaja remembers a phone call she received soon after she launched her latest election campaign.

“Someone called and told me they will break my other leg if I don’t step down,” she says of the mysterious phone call.

“Some people in Mombasa asked me to step down for a ‘more abled person’ because I would get nominated, and I wondered, who said we can never lead unless we are nominated?” she adds.

For Ms Zaja and other women like her who are living with disabilities, politics is a dirty game marred with insults, threats and intimidation.

According to the 2019 Kenya Population and Housing Census, 2.5 per cent of women in Kenya have a disability, which translates to an average of 1.2 million women countrywide.

However, this group continues to face stigma and discrimination, which is most evident when vying for political seats.

According to Ms Zaja, many women shun elective posts due to the many challenges they face.

But women with disabilities get discouraged as they have to shoulder double of what women without disabilities handle.

Among the challenges women with disabilities face on the campaign trail includes mobility, which Ms Zaja says is expensive as her support team has to accompany her everywhere, yet finances are limited.

Women in politics also face security challenges, which she says is twice the headache for a woman with disability.

She says there is also the false perception that women with disabilities ought to wait for party nomination slots. In fact, most women with disabilities are on political parties’ nomination lists, with only a handful vying for elective seats.

“I am well learned, I have the required certificates, I can debate and I can challenge. Therefore nothing should stop me from being elected,” Ms Zaja says of the debate.  

Rose Museo, who is vying for the Makueni county Woman Rep seat says she has also faced security challenges while campaigning.

Ms Museo, who walks with the aid of crutches, says people often create chaos in meetings, knowing too well she cannot run to save herself.

Ms Museo says when she was elected into office, she worked extra hard “to prove  to people who felt a woman with a disability could not perform her duties well, forgetting that what I had was just a physical disability but not a mental one.”  

The candidate has also faced intimidation, insults and derogatory remarks.

“I have been told that a person with disability does not belong in parliament and should resume cooking for her husband. I felt like the devil was reminding me of my disability,” says Ms Museo.   

In recent years, political parties have been supporting women with disabilities by giving them nomination tickets. Wiper Party leader, Kalonzo Musyoka, told The Standard on Sunday that besides party tickets, women aspirants with disabilities also get support from the party during campaigns, and “by giving them leadership positions in the party’s National Executive Council.”

However, according to Ms Zaja, some political parties are yet to accommodate women with disabilities as some only wait to nominate them to represent special groups.

She says they should be included in all areas of leadership, not just in politics. The Constitution confers the right of representation to PWDs in appointive and elective positions.

Article 54(2) and Article 177, for instance, outline the composition of county assemblies, which should include the representation of PWDs.

Executive Director of the National Council of Persons with Disabilities (NCPWD), Harun Hassan, applauds women with disabilities who have decided to vie for elective seats.

“They are our heroes, showing the world that disability is not inability and we support them,” he says.

Mr Hassan says the Council concurs with the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) that inclusivity can be attained by implementing the Political Parties Act, which outlines minimum standards for people in special interest groups, including PWDs.  

Besides seeking elective positions, there are also voters with disabilities who are unable to participate in the electoral process due to the challenges they face in polling stations.

Hellen Wayua, a team leader for PWDs in Kaiti Constituency, Makueni county, says people who have visually challenged face difficulty in casting their votes.

“The agents may make them vote for the wrong candidate and if one is physically challenged, getting to some polling stations becomes difficult,” says Ms Wayua.