From wrongs to rights

Rights advocate Melissa Miller describes how disabled people and their organisations have set about changing hearts and minds in this West African state

Aminata cycles into the dusty yard on her handbike. She has just turned 18 and finds herself alone, having recently arrived in the capital. She has nowhere to stay, no money, no job and is six months pregnant. As a child Aminata had been badly burnt and her lower limbs are now painfully infected. She is the first visitor to the newly opened drop-in centre at Handicap Solidaire Burkina (HSB). Her voice is barely audible when she speaks, but if anyone suggests that she return to her village they are met with a steely resistance.

Several days later, we sit facing the director of a women’s rights centre and hear the all too familiar words uttered: “We work with women, but not disabled women.” An HSB colleague and I had spent days accompanying Aminata to women’s centres only to find ourselves stuck in this déjà vu scenario. We would point out the hypocrisy of this statement, protest and outline the rights enshrined in national and international law but to no avail; in the eyes of certain non-governmental organisations (NGOs) disabled women were simply not part of their female target group.

After much advocacy and weeks of phone calls up and down the power chain, Aminata is eventually offered a place in a centre for young mothers and receives the medical treatment she needs. However it has been no easy battle.

Structures created to alleviate poverty and promote the respect of human rights are often violating the very human rights they seek to promote. Many local and international NGOs are guilty of, at best, an ignorant oversight or, at worst, a flagrant abuse of human rights when they fail to include disabled people in their development programmes.

HSB is a local disabled people’s organisation (DPO) that began life providing employment and sporting opportunities before taking on an advocacy role to address the root causes of disablist discrimination. For change to be sustainable, HSB sought to translate the rights outlined in national and international legislation into transformation on the ground through raising awareness at a community and institutional level. With a small budget and an abundance of passion, HSB created a programme to promote the rights of disabled people in Burkina. This programme incorporated the opening of the first drop-in centre in Burkina offering support to disabled people and their families, the creation of a disability rights advocacy network and the delivery of disability rights training to national and international NGOs.  

Within weeks of opening the drop-in centre, the HSB forecourt was filled with disabled children and adults. The centre adviser was accompanying people to schools, health centres and training courses to advocate for inclusive access. Many common problems were exposed on which the organisation and its new network collectively campaigned. HSB staff delivered training to an energised and mobilised network of 35 DPOs. As disabled people facing the same problems as those they were appealing to, our trainers understood the feelings of disempowerment.

The success of the disability rights awareness training with NGOs was less immediate. Many NGOs failed to see the relevance of disability rights to their work and refused to accept a meeting. The director of an NGO seeking to eliminate world hunger told us “we don’t work with disabled people”. This despite the reality that disabled people have less access to education and employment opportunities in Burkina and are therefore more likely to suffer from malnutrition. Unfortunately this was not an uncommon response.

Perhaps most disappointing is the disablist discrimination that occasionally emanates from international NGOs claiming to work on behalf of disabled people in developing countries. It is inexplicable that such NGOs have yet to adopt the social model of disability, internally at least. I accompanied my colleague to a meeting with the coordinator of a European organisation that financed inclusive education for disabled children. My colleague was told that she could not become the HSB representative because it would be too much hard work for a person with her disability. After complaining to the head office the decision was overturned – but should we really need to engage in this battle with an organisation that is supposed to be promoting inclusion? The sad truth is that many NGOs are content to maintain the charity model whilst using the excuse that there are no qualified disabled people to fill the posts and simultaneously doing little to alter the status quo.

Despite the discouraging response, HSB persevered. In a country that is still largely dependent on international aid, it was imperative that disability be mainstreamed in development cooperation. HSB saturated the development sector: whenever there was a consultation led by the government, civil society or international institutions, a HSB member was there asking the same question: “How are you involving disabled people?” HSB significantly increased their profile and gradually NGOs began to sign up for the training.

One particularly momentous step was the training delivered to a network of organisations supporting young women, many of whom had closed their doors on Aminata a few months prior.

To respond to the need for further training in rural areas where disabled people have fewer opportunities, HSB trained six disabled people who are currently delivering the disability rights programme to civil society organisations and local government in 45 provinces across Burkina. The programme has established an awareness of disability rights at a critical juncture when Burkina recently ratified the UN Convention on the Rights of People with Disabilities (UNCRPD) and disabled people felt empowered to advocate for change.