Both government and non-governmental organizations have been working together protecting the rights of people with disabilities.
Though these organizations put much effort in protecting rights of people with disabilities, in many communities’ things are different.
A recent research by MIJ FM radio has established that many people who have children with disabilities are facing discrimination across the country.
On a sad note, men are the ones who are perpetuating violence to children with disabilities as they deny responsibility to take care of their children.
Memory Yakobe from Zomba District who has a child with disability outlines her ordeal as she says she had a happy family before she gave birth to a child with disability who is not able to do anything on her own.
In 2009, Yakobe gave birth to a child who had no disability and her husband was taking care of her and the child.
Things took a different turn in 2014, when she gave birth to another child who was born with a disability.
The father of the child told grace that he does not want to live with such a child who was different from their first born.
The man had further told his wife to do everything possible to remove the child from their house to secure her marriage.
Later, the man stopped supporting his family and he was spending a lot of his time outside.
One day, Yakobe got surprised when the man came and told her to kill the child in order to secure her marriage.
Yakobe denied to kill her own daughter which did not go down well with her husband who ended the marriage and went away with all the property including kitchen utensils.
The man went for good and it is now ten years since he left for unknown place.
The reason of ending matrimony was that his wife had refused to take away life of her daughter with disability.
It never rained but poured as things got worse when she went back to her home village where she was not welcome. She was evicted from the house by her own parents.
The atrocities she faced at her village had forced her to seek for a shelter in a certain grass thatched house which on a certain day fell on her and the child due to heavy rains that made her and a child with disability to escape with injuries.
Apart from lack of shelter, yakobe is also lacking of food, clothes and a wheelchair for her daughter who cannot sit nor do any activities of daily living despite being 10 years old.
She, however, asks government to review the laws that protect people with disabilities so that stiff punishment is given to men who run away from their responsibility to take care of their children with disability.
Another woman called Chimwemwe Matchado from Mulanje District had also narrated the same ordeal as her husband left her when she gave birth to a child with disability.
Matchado said her son has not achieved any developmental milestones and as a result she does not do anything like playing with friends, eating, going to toilet just to mention a few.
Matchado said her husband chased her from house when she also refused to kill her child who is four years old now.
This angered his husband who threw her belongings outside and told her to leave.
She refused to end the life of her son because she loves him so much that she accepted to leave the man so that she can take care of her child comfortably.
The mother went to her village in Mulanje where she found life so tough with her child.
She said though her husband is a minibus operator, he never helps the child which is making both mother and child to have unbearable life.
She is appealing to government and non-governmental organizations to provide adequate counseling to fathers who bear children with disability.
In her remarks, Jenipher Ngwira Lecturer at the Catholic University of Malawi (CU) said government should review laws that protect the rights of women with children that have disabilities.
Ngwira said she is disappointed as many fathers of the children with disabilities are on the fore front promoting the killing of their children.
And conquering with Ngwira is Memory Ngosi Chisenga one of the child Rights Campaigner who asked government to intervene on the matter in order to protect the lives of children with disability.
Chisenga said every child has a right to life despite having a disability -hence they is need to protect them
On the other hand, the Federation of Disability Organizations in Malawi (FEDOMA) through its executive director Symon Munde said children with disabilities have also right to live on top of other rights just like any other child so it is wrong to deny them enjoyment of rights they are entitled to.
Munde said his organization has been receiving such reports- saying many women who have children with disabilities are facing all sorts of violence.
Therefore Munde has asked foe government’s intervention.
Another organization of Parents of Disabled Children Association of Malawi (PODCAM) which defends freedom for parents whose children are born with disability said it has received a lot of complaints about men ill-treating and torturing their wives on the basis that they gave birth to a child with disability.
Speaking to Mij Online Lynes Manduwa Executive director for PODCAM said many mothers were divorced that make them to face untold hardships with their children.
Manduwa said her organization has 16 thousand members out of them 12 000 women were divorced by their husbands because they have a child with disability.
Meanwhile Manduwa has asked quick intervention by government to rescue mothers whose children are born with disability and are divorced by their husbands.
Minister of Gender, Hon. Jean Sendeza, expressed her disappointment and sadness, and has pledged government’s support as the matter is being investigated.
