Source: Africa News
Just have a picture that you are a young woman who was born with a disability but an ambitious girl aiming high, at going to a nursing college after completing primary and secondary school to join your country's few nurses dressed in white uniform to treat patients in your country's short staffed public hospitals.

However, your dream gets aborted and you get enclosed in a coffin after an early premature death following a long illness linked to HIV and AIDS after contracting the virus through a defilement ordeal.

Now stop imagining! This actually happened to the late Silvia then 14 years old, from a village in Phalombe District, southern Malawi.

It was not an easy road for the girl since she went through thick and thin experiences soon after her birth.

When her father discovered that neither of Silvia's legs functioned properly, he divorced her mother just a few months after her birth.

"I was told by my grandmother that my father dumped my mother and married another woman after vowing that he could not be a father of a crippled child like me, saying someone else must have impregnated my mother," said Silvia in an interview before her death about five months later.

She died in late April this year as recently Elestina Khumbanyiwa, 68 [a neighbour to the deceased] explained.

"Silvia died two months after a long illness. She died after her grandmother who was taking care of the girl died in February this year. The old woman was 85 while her grand daughter was 15," said Khumbanyiwa.

After being divorced by her husband, Silvia's mother brought her up alone until the girl was six.

As if not enough the girl's mother also died following a long battle with breast cancer.

After her mother's death Silvia went to live with her late grandmother, who was then the only one in the extended family willing to accommodate and care for the girl while other family members rejected her.

"My dream is to after school become a nurse to treat the sick and I am doing all I can until I accomplish my dream. My grandmother used to carry me on her back to drop me at school, and again collect me after classes," she said then during the interview in December last year.

But after turning 10, the determined girl told her grandmother not to bother carrying her to and from school.

"I told her that she should not bother anymore since I would be managing through crawling alongside the other schoolchildren in my village," said Silvia then.

However, one day her friends left her behind after school and on her way back home, a 45-year-old man from her village who had been suffering from AIDS related infections for a long time dragged her to a nearby bush and raped her.

Despite being diagnosed HIV positive, the man believed his uncle had bewitched him after the two quarrelled over a piece of land some months before his illness started.

The sick man visited a "witch doctor," who gave him a concoction to drink and thereafter, advised him to have sex with any woman with disability, regardless of her age.

He was told that having sex with a woman with disability would cleanse the deadly virus from his body, curing him of HIV and AIDS related infections completely.

A week after undergoing the traumatic experience, with support from some villagers, Silvia plucked out her courage from its sticking place by reporting the matter to the police and the hospital.

The law-enforcers then promised to investigate the matter and bring the suspect to book to face the law.

But the man who had defiled her committed suicide soon after being tipped that the police were tracking him for the alleged crime he had committed against the girl. By then, the girl had already contracted HIV from the rape.

Since then, Silvia had been bedridden due to HIV and AIDS related infections.

Lucky enough however, she was then on anti-retroviral (ARV) drugs, along with over 400,000 other patients on the same treatment in Malawi.

According to the United Nations (UN) disability is a functional limitation that may occur in any population in any country worldwide.

The organisation adds that disability may be permanent or transitory, and can be physical, intellectual or sensory impairment, a medical condition or mental illness.

In Malawi just like in most countries in southern Africa and Sub Saharan Africa, crisis that also barr societies from social, economic and human development at all levels for example hunger, poverty, illiteracy disease including HIV and AIDS infringe more pains on women than men. But several studies also reveal that among the women folk themselves such crisis affects more disabled women than their other women counterparts in general.

A study by Norwegian researchers Marit Hoem Kvam and Stine Hellum Braathen from the Oslo based SINTEF Health Research in Malawi for example, shows that violence and abuse against women with disabilities in the southern African nation is common yet many such cases go unreported.

"Women with disabilities are more likely to be subjected to violations of human rights than women without disabilities," the researchers say adding, "And much indicates that the violence and abuse is hidden. There is a lot of stigma and shame connected to sexuality and disability, as well as neglect of women with disabilities in Malawi."

Sigere Kasasi is the Executive Director for Disabled Women in Development (DIWODE), an organisation tirelessly working to empower women with disabilities at all levels. She admitted that the revelations in the study reflect the reality on the ground.

"Women with disabilities are very prone to violence and due to their various disabilities, it can be very difficult for them to defend themselves against any aggressor," she explained.

Kasasi disclosed that many women with disability face double discrimination, arising from being women first and also in having a disability.

"As a result this places them at a disadvantage, making them prone to marginalisation and a vicious cycle of deprivation leaving them susceptible to abuse," she said.

In another study 'Disability and HIV/AIDS - a systematic review of literature on Africa' by Jill Hanass-Hancock of the Health Economics and HIV and AIDS Research Division (HEARD), University of KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa, also highlights a growing concern about the sexual abuse and exploitation of People With Disabilities (PWDs) in Malawi.

"In Malawi, PWDs revealed that they are often forced into their first sexual encounter. Although sexual abuse is a reality for many people with disabilities in Africa, only a few cases are reported," said Hancock.

She added: "The double stigma of disability plus HIV and AIDS might also make it difficult to disclose HIV status, particularly in the case of women who depend on their families, friends, boyfriends or husbands."

Malawi's Minister responsible for People with Disabilities and the Elderly, Reen Kachere said Malawi Government is aware of the problems experienced by PWDs at all levels hence doing all it can to improve their welfare.

"We are even aware that rights of people with disabilities are violated hence it's our wish to make sure that they enjoy all the rights enshrined in Malawi's Constitution," she said.

This is why in Malawi, there is an urgent need to put in place measures to protect PWDs especially women from acts of discrimination and Gender Based Violence (GBV) that can lead to HIV and AIDS.

Yes! One never knows if measures were put in place by authorities in Malawi to protect women with disabilities including young girls like late Silvia against GBV as well as sexual violence such as defilement and rape, this ambitious girl from Phalombe would have accomplished her dream of becoming a nurse and save lives of patients in one of the country's public hospitals currently experiencing staff shortages. 

• Malawi