As the world celebrates International Women’s Month, it is almost impossible to remember the achievements of women without being haunted by the scourge of gender-based violence ( GBV ).

GBV pervades our society almost completely today, so much that only those with a dead conscience can ignore the pain it inflicts on victims and survivors. As successive reports by the UN and other research remind us, one out of three women has suffered violence of one kind or the other in their lifetime in Africa, SA included.

From being maimed, raped, murdered, mutilated or simply going missing, GBV is a never-ending scourge that leaves the loved ones of both victims and survivors traumatised. 

However, in the sea of this vicious cycle are often forgotten cases of crimes targeted at the most vulnerable girls and women– those with disabilities. According to a 2018 World Bank report, women with disabilities face up to 10 times more violence than those without disabilities.

More often than not, it is unfavourable social and physical environments that make disabled women easy targets. If it is not the high levels of poverty and unemployment that girls and women find themselves in, it is because of concomitant problems of squalor as well as the political instability in their countries.

In the present days of economic hardship and the disintegration of social and moral fibre in society, women in Africa have become soft targets. According to the Safer spaces, a community-based violence prevention organisation, one out of five women in SA experience violence from family members, partners and strangers.

The African Development Bank’s report on Gender Data Index of 2019 states that across African countries, physical violence meted against women by their intimate partners ranges from 10% to 40%, which account for the highest number in the world.

When GBV becomes a daily story on women who can run, how about a woman who can barely walk or is confined to a wheelchair? One dreads to think about those who cannot see or hear. Or those with mental challenges.

Disability in African countries is largely still understood in a negative way, leading to women with disabilities being easy targets for many forms of attacks. Perpetrators often act like a lynch mob on the prowl, targeting women they know are incapable of defending themselves.

Women with disabilities in African societies are not only victims of GBV but also of the inaccessible physical environment, negative attitudes about disability and of ableist microaggression projected towards people with disabilities in general.

What is required is for law enforcement agencies to consider the plight of girls and women with disabilities as special cases when investigating and prosecuting cases of GBV. The scourge also requires that governments, disability activists and the health to education sectors pay attention to this issue as a special GBV case warranting special attention.

■ Ndlovu is a lecturer at the AliMazrui Centre, University of Johannesburg. She writes in her personal capacity.