1. Committed to the empowerment
of youth with disabilities
Kenya Disabled
Action Network

2. Committed to the empowerment
of youth with disabilities
FINGHTING HIV/AIDS
 The BIG Question
 ARE PERSONS WITH DISABILITIES
EFFECTIVELY INCLUDED………?

3. Committed to the empowerment
of youth with disabilities
Presentation by:
• Fredrick Ouko
 Executive Director,
 KENYA DISABLED ACTION NETWORK

4. Committed to the empowerment
of youth with disabilities
ARE PERSONS WITH DISABILITIES EFFECTIVELY
INCLUDED…..?
 HIV and AIDS are no strange words; in fact they are
the center of formal and informal discussions in
society, the focus of a number of workshops on a
daily basis. AIDS generates conflicting feelings
among us. It is bringing us face to face with the
reality of love, sex unfaithfulness, disease, loss and
death. The disease is destroying relationships,
families' organizations and governments.

5. Committed to the empowerment
of youth with disabilities
Are People with disabilities effectively included?
cont……
 Major interventions around HIV/AIDS prevention,
care, support and mitigation have been done, but
little or none has targeted the disabled people as a
special category. This is so because Aids Service
Organizations (ASOs) do no consider Disability as
their issue. They also believe that the Disabled do
not have a sex life. One might ask why the disabled
do not seek to benefit from these services: they are
unable to access these services, for several
reasons:

6. Committed to the empowerment
of youth with disabilities
Are People with disabilities effectively included?
cont……
 Families in which one or more members is
HIV-positive or have AIDS and have
someone with a disability are likely to
experience a reduction in income and
productivity precisely as their spending
patterns change to care for the sick in
addition to the disabled.

7. Committed to the empowerment
of youth with disabilities
Are People with disabilities effectively included?
cont……
 Inaccessibility of buildings and structures
used by service providers
 Inaccessibility of the information, Example
awareness based interventions that have a
strong component of information; education
and communication have not looked at the
needs of the blind, the deaf and the mute.

8. Committed to the empowerment
of youth with disabilities
Are People with disabilities effectively included?
cont……
 Disabled girls and women are at an
increased risk of HIV infection. As women
they are a marginalized group who do not
have a lot of choices even relating to their
bodies and their rights. Society accords them
low status, having a disability just
compounds the situation.

9. Committed to the empowerment
of youth with disabilities
Are People with disabilities effectively included?
cont……
 To date major campaigns and interventions
have been planned and implemented to
address information, awareness, prevention
and care of the infected and affected.
However, the degree to which these
programs involve or target people with
disabilities and their families who are in our
case mostly single mothers are very minimal
or none.

10. Committed to the empowerment
of youth with disabilities
Are People with disabilities effectively included?
cont……
 Women and children who make up the majority of
our members are at highest risk to infection as they
may not and in certain societies they can not protect
themselves due to a number of cultural social,
religious economic and environmental factors
including the nature and extent of their disability.
 On the other hand Disability and HIV/AIDS are
surrounded by a lot of myths and misconceptions:
stigma and discrimination.

11. Committed to the empowerment
of youth with disabilities
Are People with disabilities effectively included?
cont……
 Discrimination and stigma by the public, and even
family members, exposed disabled people to higher
risks of sexual abuse and HIV infection.
 People with disabilities are more likely to be victims
of sexual abuse and rape than their non-disabled
counterparts: it is obvious that the vulnerability of
people with disabilities is high, mainly due to the
prevailing economic situation, cultural beliefs, and
the general abuse of people with disabilities by
family members, relatives and other sexual
predators.

12. Committed to the empowerment
of youth with disabilities
Are People with disabilities effectively included?
cont……
 Increased vulnerability is rooted in the belief
that the disabled are not sexually active and
therefore less vulnerable to HIV. While the
opposite is true: "myths on curing HIV and
AIDS, which proclaim that HIV-positive
individuals can rid themselves of the virus by
having sex with virgins, have contributed to a
significant rise in the rape of children and
adults with disabilities.

13. Committed to the empowerment
of youth with disabilities
Are People with disabilities effectively included?
cont……
 Stigmatization of the disabled is highlighted by the
lack of HIV/AIDS information available to them. Most
counseling and testing centres are unable to deal
with people with disabilities.
 For instance, people with visual impairments have
never seen a condom, but they need to learn how to
use them; “they say they can use them as long as
they are taught and provided with information in
appropriate formats.”

14. Committed to the empowerment
of youth with disabilities
Are People with disabilities effectively included?
cont……
 The disabled people’s social exclusion from the mainstream
HIV/AIDS services make the situation worse, for example, the
VCT services don’t offer counseling in sign language,
information, education and communication materials on HIV
and AIDS are not offered in brail for the visually impaired and
those physically handicapped depend on their sexual partners
to put on condoms, all these situations increase their
vulnerability to infection. Importantly, most disabled people are
not aware of their reproductive health rights a factor that puts
them at risk of infection, confirming their exclusion from the
reproductive health programs.

15. Committed to the empowerment
of youth with disabilities
Are People with disabilities effectively included?
cont……
 There are high levels of stigmatization and
discrimination by the community, being stigmatized
and discriminated due to both HIV and AIDS status
and disability. However, the disabled people too,
stigmatize each other over HIV and AIDS status and
there are also elements of self-stigmatization and
discrimination by the disabled people themselves.
 There is also limited access to HIV & AIDS
information and utilization of services like VCT, HBC
and OVC by people with disabilities mainly because
of the nature of disability, location of the facilities and
attitudes of the service providers.

16. Committed to the empowerment
of youth with disabilities
Are People with disabilities effectively included?
cont……
 In conclusion, people with disabilities are at a
higher risk of infection to STI/HIV and AIDS
due to exclusion from mainstream HIV
interventions. The situation is further
exacerbated by lack of or non-
implementation of policy framework on
disability and HIV and AIDS.

17. Committed to the empowerment
of youth with disabilities
Lessons learned
 We need specially designed approaches focusing on
people with disabilities, and in consultation with
people with disabilities.
 The laws and policies that could potentially benefit
people with disabilities are in place; however, the
policies are only guiding visions, without
implementation guidelines and structures. Existing
legislation and policies that pertain to people with
disabilities remain mere unenforceable tools.

18. Committed to the empowerment
of youth with disabilities
Lessons learned… Cont..
 Radio may be effective in rural areas, but what plans are there
for the deaf to access such information? How, for example, do
you design a programme for people with no hands to use
condoms? That is why we are calling for inclusion in all these
policy formulations.
 There is a lot of illiteracy among people with disabilities, and
when almost all information is written down, how do you expect
people with disabilities to understand information on HIV and
AIDS?
 It is important that all HIV/Aids programs and interventions
mainstream disability and gender.

19. Committed to the empowerment
of youth with disabilities
Lessons learned… Cont..
 Accessibility issues both in awareness
creating circles and health facilities if taken
into consideration, persons with disabilities
will benefit a lot and risks of contracting the
disease reduced considerably.
 For programs targeting persons with
disabilities to be successful, their
involvement is key; especially in provision of
leadership.

20. Committed to the empowerment
of youth with disabilities
 AIDS
 Does
 Not
 Know
 disability
 “Nothing About Us Without US”

21. Committed to the empowerment
of youth with disabilities
End of Presentation

22. Committed to the empowerment
of youth with disabilities
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