Abuse and sterilization affect Nigerian women with disabilities
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Patience Ogolo Dickson, founder of Advocacy for Women with Disabilities Initiative in Nigeria, discovered years ago that some disabled women and girls face forced abortions and sterilizations by their families, a pattern that continues today.
Dickson’s work reveals widespread sexual and reproductive rights abuses against women with disabilities across Nigeria. Beatrice, a woman Dickson knows, learned she had been sterilized years prior without her knowledge or consent.
Perpetrators are often family members or intimate partners who believe they are protecting disabled women from potential sexual abuse or unwanted pregnancies. Ekaete Judith Umoh, a social justice advocate, explains that family planning services are sometimes misused to carry out forced sterilizations discreetly. Women with intellectual or psychosocial disabilities, such as autism or Down syndrome, are particularly vulnerable. In displacement camps, Adeola, a blind woman, experienced repeated forced abortions instigated by her partner, who used dangerous herbal remedies.
In some rural areas, families forcibly impregnate disabled women expecting the resulting child will provide future care. Dorothy Njemenze of the Dorothy Njamene Foundation notes that disabled women are also exploited in “baby factories,” where they are impregnated and their children are sold, as they often lack the means to escape. Despite being illegal, these practices persist due to secrecy and societal biases, with advocates like Dickson working to raise awareness and secure rights for women with disabilities.
