The August African heat strangled the tiny jail cell where Diariata Coulibaly sat alone. Somewhere outside, the sun blazed. But inside the cell it was too dark for Coulibaly to see the bruises on her body where the Mauritanian police had beaten her.
For three days she waited in the sweltering cell while prison guards fed her rice mixed with rocks. Escape was impossible; polio at age 3 had taken away most of Coulibaly’s ability to walk, and police had taken her cane.
As the leader of the National Union of Mauritanian Disabled People, Coulibaly, 27, had planned a speech in Nouakchott to introduce the concept of civil rights for Mauritanians with disabilities.
In a country in which families hide crippled children from their neighbors, the move was bold. And in an Islamic country ruled by Arabic men, having a jet-skinned African woman deliver the speech was outrageous.
Before she could make the speech, police arrested her. After three days they released her and tried to have her removed as leader of the disabled group.
“I have three strikes against me,” Coulibaly said. “I am a woman, I am black and I am disabled. I speak a great deal about disability rights, and they don’t like it.”
“In many countries besides Mauritania, women with disabilities are either silenced or ignored,” said Cindy Lewis, who interviewed Coulibaly and about 30 other women with disabilities in developing countries for Mobility International USA, a non-profit organization based in Eugene, Ore.
“There are lots of organizations that assist women in developing countries,” Lewis said. “However, nobody is paying attention to women with disabilities in those countries. And in the organizations for people with disabilities, the leaders are men. Women with disabilities are falling through the crack.”
Women with disabilities experience double discrimination for being female and disabled, Lewis said. In poor countries, women with disabilities are more likely to be unemployed, illiterate, without vocational training and hungry.
Coulibaly managed to get a law degree from Nouakchott University, but the only job she can get is her volunteer position with the disabled group.
Stigmatized by their families, women with disabilities are often isolated or abandoned, Lewis said. They are considered unfit to be wives and mothers, which makes them considered virtually worthless in many countries.
“Discrimination of people with disabilities is a serious social issue in the United States,” Lewis said. “In other countries it can be an issue of survival.”
This fall, Mobility International USA will publish Lewis’ research in a booklet, “Including Women with Disabilities in Development Projects.” Funded in part by the Global Fund for Women, the booklet will explore the problems and solutions for disabled women in developing countries.
One of the solutions, Lewis said, is to inform women in those countries about programs that can help them. One in Russia, for example, employs women with disabilities to build wheelchairs for themselves and for sale. Another in El Salvador encourages women with disabilities to become advocates for their own civil rights.
Outlining these projects in the booklet will serve two purposes, Lewis said. It will let women with disabilities know what is available, and it will offer suggestions to other organizations about how they too could assist women with disabilities.
“The message we want to give organizations is that women with disabilities are available who have all the expertise in the world to help identify what their needs are and the solutions for them,” Lewis said. “And we want to get the message to women that there are other women out there who are making changes in their community.”
The booklet is one of several projects under way by Mobility International USA to promote civil rights for women and men with disabilities. The 13-year-old organization devotes most of its energy to international exchange programs for the disabled.
Mobility International’s travelers have studied folk dancing in Bulgaria, painted a mural in Mexico and climbed the Great Wall of China. The group is planning an exchange next year in Azerbaijan and other parts of the former Soviet Union.
The exchanges are a way to let people travel who might otherwise think they can’t, but they are not just for leisure, said Susan Sygall, director of Mobility International USA. In all of the exchanges, she said, participants end up tackling civil rights issues.
“What we strive for is person-to-person contact to break down barriers between other countries to empower persons with disabilities to achieve their rights throughout the world,” she said.
In some cases, Mobility International has sent professionals to other countries to assist them. One professional exchange last spring sent experts on the American Disabilities Act to New Zealand, where people were trying to enact similar legislation.
In August, Mobility International USA used funding from the Kellogg Foundation to bring 22 young disabled rights leaders with disabilities from 15 different countries to Eugene for a month of leadership training and recreation.
The group, which included Coulibaly, of Mauritania, rode horses, went white-water rafting and camped in the Willamette National Forest. As much fun as the activities were, they had a serious purpose: to increase self-esteem.
Also serious were the seminars at which the group discussed skills such as handling the media and motivating others to join their cause. Many of the already media-savvy participants shared horror stories about reporters who were more interested in their disabilities than in what they had to say.
“I have been to conferences all over the country, and I have never been to anything so intense,” said Dallas Patterson, of Houston, one of four United States representatives.
“We are learning from each other’s failures and successes, and we adapt them to where we are, whether it’s rural east Texas or a big city in Thailand.”
Many of the women, including Coulibaly, said they were frustrated by societies that consider them unsuited for marriage or employment.
“Men want women who can carry water to the well or who can go to market,” said one woman. “They won’t even consider you for marriage if you can’t do that. Women with disabilities end up staying with their families and being so dependent on them that they never get to grow up.”
The meeting was the first time most of the women had ever expressed these thoughts with other disabled women. The group gave them a sense of empowerment, they said.
Whether it is organizing meetings with other disabled women, managing the media or introducing legislation, Coulibaly said she hopes to take solutions back to her country.
“I would like to take anything that would help me make positive changes in my community for myself personally as a women with a disability and as a leader of a community,” she said.
But only a year has passed since Coulibaly was thrown in jail. Her country still considers a disabled person a miskin (unfortunate one) and believes women belong only in the home. Government leaders are still trying to have her ousted from her organization.
“I am learning a great deal here, but it is a delicate thing,” Coulibaly said. “I want to have a solution and go back and live a better life. But how? Is it possible to change the situation I am living in Mauritania? I am still asking that question.”
For more information contact Mobility International USA, P.O. Box 3551, Eugene, Ore. 97403; 503-343-1284.
