The Global North/South limit: still a relevant sociopolitical border? The case of women with disabilities migrating in Europe

21/12/2023

Written by: Anna Lefevre

Translated by: Louise Bia 

In June 1997 happened the first International Leadership Forum for women with disabilities, sponsored by the UN^[1]Doyle B., Berman Bieler A., ed. (1997). International Leadership Forum for Women with Disabilities Rehabilitation International, Cornell University., gathering women from all around the world. 25 years later, women with disabilities still struggle to be considered as political subjects and actresses.

Disability, defined as “a concept that results from the interaction between persons with impairments and attitudinal and environmental barriers that hinders their full and effective participation in society on an equal basis with others”^[2]Définition de la Convention pour les droits des personnes handicapées signée à New York en 2008. Convention on the Rights of People with Disabilities, Preamble, New York. (2008). United Nations, … Continue reading, concerns from 15% to 20% of the global population^[3]World Health Organization (7 March 2023). Disability. https://www.who.int/en/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/disability-and-health. In most countries, disability affects more women than men. According to the numbers of the WHO, it concerns one woman out of five and even more in the Global South countries. According to the Gender and Development Network, in the Global South, 75% of the people with disabilities are women^[4]UN Women (2019). Making the Sdg’s count for women and girls with disabilities. … Continue reading.

The notion of Global South countries, developed in the 1980s to refer to the “third world” countries, is controversial in the field of International Relations^[5]Capdepuy V. (2023). Le Sud Global, un nouvel acteur de la géopolitique mondiale? Géoconfluences. … Continue reading as it gathers in the same group countries with an important precariousness and global powers such as India or China. However, it turns to be important when talking about disability^[6]Site web de la revue : https://dgsjournal.org/. According to the WHO, 80% of the people with disability live in this region of the world, where precarity combined with disability strikes mainly women. Therefore, they are more vulnerable facing poverty, exclusion and conflicts, reasons that lead approximatively 89 million persons a year to migrate from South to North^[7]United Nations (2017). International Migration Report.https://www.un.org/en/development/desa/population/migration/publications/migrationreport/docs/MigrationReport2017.pdf. A lot of them come from countries in war and/or have survived political repressions, and have developed disabilities or traumas, whereas others go to countries where they can have access to the required care. When these women migrate from South to North, they are not only women with disabilities and immigrants but also most of the time poor. They represent a particularly vulnerable group within the migrating population; nonetheless, they are still poorly considered both by humanitarian help and countries^[8]Nguyen X., Stienstra D. (2021). Engaging girls and women with disability in the global South: Beyond cultural and geopolitical generalizations. Disability and the Global South. 8 :2, 2035-2052. … Continue reading.

Thus, how to consider the situation of immigrant women with disabilities from the Global South in an intersectional perspective, before, during and after their migration to the Global North?

Women with disabilities in the Global South: an accumulation of vulnerabilities

Works dedicated to disability adopt a social model: it’s not only disability that makes someone disabled, but their environment as well, and mostly the discrimination that it generates^[9]Modèle social du handicap et des inégalités : quels enjeux (9 septembre 2010). EHESP (école des hautes études en santé publique). … Continue reading. The study of disability must consider the particularities of a specific society and environment: poverty in the country of origin maintains the situation of disability of immigrant people. According to this definition, “poverty, including relative poverty, is considered according to this social approach to be the first factor of connection between disability and deficiency” ^[10]Modèle social du handicap et des inégalités : quels enjeux (9 septembre 2010). EHESP (école des hautes études en santé publique). … Continue reading. According to the 2011 World Report on Disability, 20% of the poorest people have a disability^[11]World Health Organization (14 décembre 2011), World Report on Disability, 350 p., without specifying what “poorest” means. Disability is as well more widespread in rural communities, especially in the South^[12]Chaundhry V. (2019) Disability in and through Rural Worlds, Disability from the South: Towards a Lexicon. … Continue reading.

Poverty is yet again a feminized phenomenon^[13]Rapport de la Commission sur l’égalité des chances pour les femmes et les hommes (2007). La féminisation de la pauvreté.  … Continue reading, even in Northern countries, but with most poor women living in the South: for instance, 83.7% of women extremely poor live in Asia and in sub-Saharan Africa^[14]UN Women (1st February 2022). Poverty deepens for women and girls, according to the latest projections. https://data.unwomen.org/features/poverty-deepens-women-and-girls-according-latest-projections. The main mechanisms that make disability more present in Southern countries, being precarity and the lack of access to care, are as well the mechanisms that mainly affect women. Poverty can cause infirmity or worsen it. For example, a poor access to obstetrical care is a major cause of disability in women of the Global South^[15]UN Women (2019). Making the Sdg’s count for women and girls with disabilities. … Continue reading. Moreover, women with disabilities remain “systematically excluded from mainstream obstetrical health services”^[16]“Despite so much effort being placed on improved access to maternity health care, studies show that women with disabilities are being systematically excluded from the mainstream maternal health … Continue reading. This is maintained by the idea, in the North as well, that women with disability are unfit for sexual life^[17]Dean L, Tolhurst R, Khanna R, Jehan K. (2017). “You’re disabled, why did you have sex in the first place?” An intersectional analysis of experiences of disabled women with regard to their … Continue reading and maternity^[18]Nguyen at al. (2019). Maternal Healthcare experiences of and challenges for women with physical disabilities in low and middle-income countries: A review of qualitative evidence. Sexuality and … Continue reading. Sexual and reproductive health are thus inaccessible, and these misogynistic and ableist representations maintain their health problems and their marginality. Besides the reproductive health care, women generally have more difficulties to access to health care, provoking or worsening their disability^[19]Abdalla S. et al. (2021). Gender and the impact of Covid-19 on demand for and access to healthcare: analysis of data from Kenya, Nigeria and South Africa. The Lancet, Global Health. Vol. 9. N° … Continue reading.

In precarious communities themselves, those women suffer from both misogyny and ableism. These discriminations are added and do not exist independently from one another; hence, not only do they deteriorate their health but also their social position. In India, women are even more affected by the sexism perpetuated by Hindu conjugal laws if they have an invisible disability^[20]Tewari D. (9/11/2023). Flawed: Disability and Marriage Law in India, University of Victoria. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=260OZVnz82s. The Hindu Marriage Act of 1955 allows divorce if the other party develops mental disorder, which mainly affects women because most of the petitions for divorce are filled by men – in India, there is no secular law about marriage. Disability is perceived as a flaw, causing eternal dependence^[21]Tewari D. (9/11/2023). Flawed: Disability and Marriage Law in India, University of Victoria. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=260OZVnz82s, adding up to the perception of women as eternally underaged^[22]Hamelin M. (2016). Hindoues, une réalité complexe, Gazette des Femmes. https://gazettedesfemmes.ca/12832/hindoues-une-realite-complexe/.

Women with disabilities are the most marginalized community and are described as “cumulating vulnerability factors” ^[23]Défenseur des droits (Novembre 2016). Rapport sur l’emploi des femmes en situation de handicap : Analyse exploratoire sur les discriminations multiples. … Continue reading. They are particularly exposed to sexist violence: according to the UN, in 2016, women with disabilities were two or three times more likely to experience forced marriage, early pregnancy and genital mutilations^[24]UN Women (1st July 2016). UN Women Statement on the Committee on the Rights of People with Disabilities. … Continue reading. These factors are linked, as the probability of a precarious pregnancy is also higher in women with disabilities that were married at young age and in those who have a limited access to education, which concerns more women with disabilities^[25]Kwagala B, Wandera SO (2021). The determinants of early childbearing by disability status in Uganda: an analysis of demographic and health survey data. Pan Afr Med J, Vol.40. … Continue reading. The agency of these women is doubly denied.

The humanitarian investment consists in helping these women organize themselves politically, but also let their words be heard. In Southern countries, women are less numerous in associations and groups defending the rights of people with disabilities where patriarchal patterns breed^[26]Majiet S., Africa A. (2015). Women with disabilities in leadership: The challenges of patriarchy. Agenda: Empowering Women for Gender Equity, Vol. 29, No. 2 (104), Gender & disability, pp. … Continue reading. It is difficult for those women to let their claims be heard in such a marginal situation, even more when they are excluded from major organizations defending the rights of people with disabilities, where they are considered unfit for leadership positions^[27]Majiet S., Africa A. (2015). Women with disabilities in leadership: The challenges of patriarchy. Agenda: Empowering Women for Gender Equity, Vol. 29, No. 2 (104), Gender & disability, pp. … Continue reading. In Zimbabwe, as anywhere else in Africa, various anti-ableism movements arise little time after independence, alongside masculine anti-ableism figures. Women’s role in 2015 was still qualified as “not reported, not evoked” and the situation of women with disabilities as an “invisible intersectionality”^[28]Majiet S., Africa A. (2015). Women with disabilities in leadership: The challenges of patriarchy. Agenda: Empowering Women for Gender Equity, Vol. 29, No. 2 (104), Gender & disability, pp. … Continue reading. Launched two years later by UNESCO, the Spotlight Initiative, aiming at eliminating any form of violence against women and girls seems to have had a real impact in the life of people with disabilities from Zimbabwe’s rural zones^[29]UNESCO (n.d) Project Spotlight. https://core.unesco.org/en/project/268ZIM1000.

This initiative allowed them to know more about their rights, create more groups defending the rights of women with disabilities, where they can help each other and share their experience.

Women are beginning to overcome the lack of organizations defending their rights, especially by creating their own groups, sometimes with the help of foreign organizations. In Ethiopia, a country that has the lowest gender equality index numbers^[30]ILO. (23 November 2011). Stories of Empowerment. Ethiopia: Women with Disabilities harness the power of Entrepreneurship. … Continue reading, the International Labour Organization for Ethiopian women entrepreneurship collaborated in 2011 with the national association of Ethiopian women with disabilities created in 2009. Women that benefited from this program declare that it’s mainly the self-sufficiency and the ability not to depend on others that make it a great progress for them. If Ethiopia is still a poor country, it has such a growth that it is sometimes nicknamed the African tiger, this social evolution is contemporary of an economical evolution^[31]Bien que le pays expérimente un recul antiféministe, voir UN Women (18 Novembre 2022). Allez de l’avant : Contrer le recul antiféministe en Éthiopie. Afrique Renouveau. … Continue reading. Some international organizations also work with public authorities, such as Zimbabwe’s president with UNESCO since 2021 to adopt a more comprehensive policy on disability, especially towards girls and women^[32]UNESCO (31 March 2022). Zimbabwe works with Unesco to protect rights of girls and women with disability.  … Continue reading. Nonetheless, the Zimbabwean press reports in 2023 that there is still a lack of consideration of these problematics^[33]Matonho T. (2023). Women with disabilities economic struggles>/i>. https://www.newsday.co.zw/opinion-analysis/article/200020569/women-with-disabilities-economic-struggles.

However, besides these examples of progress, withdrawal of public powers stays one of the main reasons for precarity. The Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities of the United Nations (UNCRPD), signed in 2008, was ratified by most of the Northern countries, except for the United States, and all the countries that didn’t sign or ratify it are from the Global South, also highlighting a disengagement from governments on these questions and the non-respect of international norms^[34]STATUS AS AT : 13-12-2023 10:15:49 EDT. https://treaties.un.org/Pages/ViewDetails.aspx?src=TREATY&mtdsg_no=iv-15&chapter=4&clang=_en. However, even in countries that apply these norms, the attempt of the UNCRPD committee, that called the concerned States to act more for the rights of people with disabilities^[35]Informal discussion group: women with disabilities (9 March 2015) United Nations Headquarters, are judged insufficient. The international convention that aims to guarantee the rights of people with disabilities and their equality before the law^[36]Nations Unies (2008) Convention relative aux droits des personnes handicapées. https://www.ohchr.org/fr/instruments-mechanisms/instruments/convention-rights-persons-disabilities, represents an important tool to apply international legal norms, recognizing in article 6 the specific difficulties faced by girls and women with disabilities^[37]States Parties recognize that women and girls with disabilities are subject to multiple discrimination, and in this regard shall take measures to ensure the full and equal enjoyment by them of all … Continue reading. For this reason, the application of this convention remains one the main recommendations of the organizations^[38]Christian Blind Mission (2023). CBM launches New Report on localising the CRPD. https://www.cbm.org/news/news-initiatives/news-cbid/cbm-launches-new-report-on-localising-the-un-crpd/.

Nevertheless, for most people the possibility of a better future lays in migrating outside of the Global South. Devyani Tewarin, Indian jurist, declares in 2023 that in precarious and marginalized situations, women with disabilities “don’t think to claim their rights, but try to survive” ^[39]Tewari D. (18 October 2021). Tales of a disabled woman working at ableist, sexist workplaces. Jindal Global Law Review 12:2, 417–431. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8521100/^[40]Tewari D. (9/11/2023). Flawed: Disability and Marriage Law in India, University of Victoria. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=260OZVnz82s, an analysis that she doesn’t limit to her country, India, but that she extends to the whole Global South. Diagnosed epileptic at the age of 13, the discriminations she suffered in her youth in India brought her to go study in Canada where Feminist Disability Studies^[41]Garland-Thompson R. (2005). Feminist Disability Studies. Journal of Women and Culture in Society, 30:2. https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/abs/10.1086/423352?journalCode=signs are way more developed^[42]Tewari D. (9/11/2023). Flawed: Disability and Marriage Law in India, University of Victoria. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=260OZVnz82s, and where she prepared her PhD. There, she acquired knowledge in law that allowed her to act in her own country and approach the mechanisms of oppression that women with disabilities suffer from in India from a scientific perspective. However, she considers herself as an educated middle-class woman and from a high cast and recognizes that she is less marginalized than most of the immigrant women with disabilities that leave because they can’t be treated in their countries of origin^[43]Tewari D. (18 October 2021). Tales of a disabled woman working at ableist, sexist workplaces. Jindal Global Law Review 12:2, 417–431. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8521100/.

Women and girls with disabilities in migratory movements

Disability is sometimes the reason itself for migration: the lack of access to the adapted care is both a factor of disability and immigration for women with disabilities. They decide to leave hoping to have access to better treatments. For example, this is the case of the activist Elisa Rojas, from Chile, who was born in 1979 with an imperfect osteogenesis and arrived in France at the age of 2^[44]AFP. (8 mai 2021) Elisa Rojas, l’avocate française qui rend visible les femmes handicapées. Ouest France. … Continue reading. More recently, in 2009, French Minister of Interior reports that 2% of the asylum requests cite medical reasons^[45]Piérart G. et al. (November 2020). The circumstances of migrant families raising children with disabilities in five European countries: Updating knowledge and pursuing new research. Alter, 14: 4, … Continue reading and since 2016, it is possible to ask in France a residence permit specifically for medical care^[46]La France compte parmi les très rares pays européens qui disposent d’une procédure spécifique de délivrance de titres de séjour aux étrangers malades. … Continue reading. People that are led to migrate because of their disability are also mothers of children with disabilities, often alone, that leave to get their kids treated in Europe, often deprived of any care besides their family’s^[47]Piérart G. et al. (November 2020). The circumstances of migrant families raising children with disabilities in five European countries: Updating knowledge and pursuing new research. Alter, 14: 4, … Continue reading.

If people with disabilities represent 15% of the population, those in movement represent up to 5 million people^[48]Pisani M., Grech S. (2015). Disability and Forced Migrations. Critical Intersectionalities. Disability in the Global South. 2 : 1, 421-441. According to the French National Institute for Statistical and Economic Studies (INSEE), the portion of women in the migrating population represents 51.5% and this number is increasing^[49]Insee (03/03/2022). Immigrés et descendants d’immigrés. https://www.insee.fr/fr/statistiques/6047719?sommaire=6047805. However, immigration is considered to be a matter of people with good health^[50]Une mauvaise santé est encore associée à l’immobilité, et ceci est aussi à l’origine d’un manque d’études sur sur les migrations et le handicap, voir: Garcia M. Reyes A. Rote A. (2019). … Continue reading, and is a dangerous process that lets after-effects. Some become disabled after a particularly dangerous journey^[51]UN Women (2021). From evidence to action: Tackling gender-based violence against migrant women and girls. … Continue reading, in which they are exposed to violence. The factors of disability mainly affecting women are multiplied during their journey, such as the lack of access to obstetrical care, one of the main death reasons among displaced women^[52]Van de Akker T. (April 2016). Maternal mortality and severe morbidity in a migration perspective, Gynaecology, Vol. 32<:i>, pp. 26-38. … Continue reading.

Many flee war or political repressions that put them in a situation of disability, or violence linked to their gender^[53]United Nations (12 October 2023). Third Committee Highlights Spike in Conflict-Related Torture, Expresses Concern over Gendered Disinformation Threat to Women, Human Rights Defenders Seventy-eighth … Continue reading). Genital mutilations, mainly common in the African continent, leave after-effects^[54]Lightfoot-Klein H. (1993). Disability in female immigrants with ritually inflicted genital mutilations. Women & Therapy. 14: 3-4,187-94. Doi: 10.1300/J015v14n01_16. … Continue reading. In France, between 2007 and 2009, an investigation called “Excision and Disability”^[55]Andro A. et al. (2009). Rapport final. Volet quantitatif de projet excision et handicap [Rapport de Recherche], INED. https://hal.science/hal-02110998v1/file/Rapport_final_ExH_volet_quantitatif.pdf indicated that mental disability and post-traumatic syndrome are often linked to sexual violence in women (endured during the exile)^[56]European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights (n.d). Inequalities and multiple discrimination in healthcare. … Continue reading. In Greece, they are particularly present in Afghan female immigrants^[57]European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights (n.d). Inequalities and multiple discrimination in healthcare. … Continue reading. Disability is also more spread in refugees coming from a country in war. According to the organization Humanity and Inclusion, 22% of the Syrian refugees are considered disabled, of whom 6% severely^[58]Thompson S. (8 March 2017). Disability in Syria<:i>. K4D. Institute of Developmental Studies. https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/5978668240f0b65dcb000006/056-Disability-in-Syria.pdf, a proportion way superior to the one of disabled people within the global population.

In 2019, Nujeen Mustafa, who is a Syrian Kurdish refugee affected by a brain paralysis, addressed a speech to the UN about the invisibilization that these women suffer from in periods of conflicts, demanding the organization not to forget about them^[59]Statement by Ms. Nujeen Mustafa during the UN Security Council briefing on the humanitarian situation in Syria UN headquarters, New York (24 April 2019). … Continue reading. The young woman fled Alep and then Kobane in 2015 for Turkey, then Germany, crossing the sea in an inflatable dinghy, in a wheeling chair. She explains why her situation is twice as difficult: “For example, a man can ask for help from a male friend to flee. But in a society like Syria, a woman cannot. If you don’t have an immediate male relative, you cannot just call on a friend to carry you”^[60]Obol A., Johanssen S. (3 December 2020). Women and Girls with Disabilities must not be excluded. Relief Web. https://reliefweb.int/report/world/women-and-girls-disabilities-must-not-be-excluded. She adds: “You need to address the needs of people with disabilities, particularly women. This is not a favor. This is not charity. This is our rights”^[61]Statement by Ms. Nujeen Mustafa during the UN Security Council briefing on the humanitarian situation in Syria UN headquarters, New York (24 April 2019). … Continue reading. If Nujeen Mustafa is getting media exposure^[62]“Nujeen is now a powerful advocate for refugee youth, undertaking media interviews and speaking at a number of high-profile conferences including a UNHCR Age”. … Continue reading, she clarifies that it’s not only her story, that a general awareness on women with disabilities in the help brought to refugees is indispensable^[63]Statement by Ms. Nujeen Mustafa during the UN Security Council briefing on the humanitarian situation in Syria UN headquarters, New York (24 April 2019). … Continue reading.

The inclusion of women and girls with disabilities in the policies of help for refugees is progressively being implemented in the field of humanitarian help. The difficulty stays the same for organizations trying to bring help to women that stay in the Global South, which is taking into account a three-way intersectionality. In May 2016, the Women Refugee Committee recommended to “effectively include women and girls with disabilities in humanitarian action”^[64]Commission des femmes pour les réfugiés. (Mai 2016) « Travailler pour améliorer notre propre avenir » : L’inclusion des femmes et des filles handicapées dans l’action humanitaire. … Continue reading and demanded collective action from the States, the United Nations, humanitarian and development actors and actors in the field of disability. The UNHCR adopted in 1991 guidelines for the protection of refugees and the Women’s Refugee Commission leaned on the application of Article 6 of the UNCRPD for women refugees, indicating that they should be conjointly applied. The main recommendation, particularly defended by Nujeen Mustafa, is not to see women only as subjects of help, but to integrate them into political decision-making^[65]Obol A., Johanssen S. (3 December 2020). Women and Girls with Disabilities must not be excluded. Relief Web. https://reliefweb.int/report/world/women-and-girls-disabilities-must-not-be-excluded.

Refugees with disabilities in Europe: defining a three-way discrimination

Institutions for the defence of human rights, including the European Council, also insist on how the detention of migrants affect women, especially with disabilities^[66]Council of Europe (7 March 2016). Human rights of refugee and migrant girls need to be better protected. … Continue reading. These women are exposed in their host countries not only to hostile immigration policies, but especially to racism, which creates a three-way intersection with ableism and misogyny that they are already experiencing^[67]Petersen A. (2006). Exploring Intersectionality in Education: The Intersection of gender, race, disability and class. University of Northern Iowa. 268 p. … Continue reading. Racism doesn’t only add up to sexism and ableism, it worsens them. As women with disabilities, they are more vulnerable to racism and to institutional racism in the medical field. The Mediterranean syndrome, a form of discrimination leading the nursing staff to consider that some persons, essentially Black or Mediterranean people, exaggerate their symptoms, mainly affects women, and especially women with disabilities, since that discrimination implies more difficulties than Europeans to get an adapted diagnosis. The media-covered cases these past years concern for most of them black women: Naomi Musenga, from Congo, Yolande Gabriel, from Martinique and most recently, Aïcha, 13 years old, black teenager^[68]Perrotin D., (3 décembre 2023). Des pompiers accusent Aïcha, 13 ans, de simuler ses souffrances : elle meurt quelques jours plus tard. Mediapart. … Continue reading. The latter’s mom, Mariama, wonders: “And if we weren’t black”^[69]Perrotin D., (3 décembre 2023). Des pompiers accusent Aïcha, 13 ans, de simuler ses souffrances : elle meurt quelques jours plus tard. Mediapart. … Continue reading. If it is here in a French context^[70]Lambert M. et al, (2022). Mediterranean syndrome and the French medical world, a racist prejudice still active. A parallel with Frantz Fanon’s article about the “North African syndrome”, … Continue reading, the expression evokes a present and observed reality in all Europe^[71]Patillo M. et al., (2023). Racism against racialized migrants in healthcare in Europe: a scoping review. International Journal for Equity in Health, Vol. 22. … Continue reading, despite the anti-discrimination laws at a European level^[72]Dias S. et al. (2010) Immigrant women’s perception and experiences of health care services: inside from a focus group study, Journal of Public Health, 18:5, 489-496. https://d-nb.info/1192021150/34 ^[73]European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights (n.d). Inequalities and multiple discrimination in healthcare. … Continue reading.

Women of colour and with disabilities keep on living specific discriminations, that lead to difficulties in the diagnosis and contribute to their under-representation among women with disabilities. Black women encounter more difficulties in the diagnosis of a neurodivergence, such as autism, and it is a tendency that seems to be verified internationally^[74]Gilyard K. (7 June 2023). How Black autistic women and girls are excluded from conversations on resources and research. The 19th. https://19thnews.org/2023/06/black-women-and-girls-autism-data/. They are diagnosed in general later as well^[75]Diemer MC et al., (2022). Autism presentation in female and Black populations: Examining the roles of identity, theory, and systemic inequalities. Autism. Nov;26(8):1931-1946. DOI: … Continue reading
, approximatively 6 months later for kids^[76]Dryden J. (23 August 2020). African American children with autism experiencing long delays in diagnosis, Washington University School of Medicine in St Louis.  … Continue reading. Thus, if medicine is technically more developed in all the Northern countries and that European laws are supposed to ensure equality of access to healthcare, reality is different and maintains a situation of disability as in the Global South.

These women come across similar difficulties in the access to social help — the marginality of which they suffer from in their home countries keeps on affecting them. At global scale, only 1% of them know how to read^[77]UN Women (2019). Making the Sdg’s count for women and girls with disabilities. … Continue reading: illiteracy concerns then a big portion of them and amplifies the language barrier and makes the access to care even harder^[78]Piérart G. et al. (November 2020). The circumstances of migrant families raising children with disabilities in five European countries: Updating knowledge and pursuing new research. Alter, 14: 4, … Continue reading, They also expose themselves to the same forms of discrimination that they suffer from within the care system itself, even if people with disabilities are depending more on those than the others. Yet, they have even more difficulties to receive care than disabled people in France because they suffer from a more important social isolation, and little is done to overcome their lack of knowledge in the approach to undertake^[79]Piérart G. et al. (November 2020). The circumstances of migrant families raising children with disabilities in five European countries: Updating knowledge and pursuing new research. Alter, 14: 4, … Continue reading. They also are more vulnerable to institutional violence. For example, if they end up in an administration detention center^[80]European Disability Forum (11 August 2020). The EU must protect the rights of refugees with disabilities. … Continue reading, where in addition to hard conditions of life, even if the European Asylum Support Office developed tools to identify one’s specific needs, they are rarely used to identify people with disabilities. Finally, in the host countries there is an important gap between the conditions of life of families with a disabled kid and the legal norms of the country itself, due to integration difficulties^[81]Piérart G. et al. (November 2020). The circumstances of migrant families raising children with disabilities in five European countries: Updating knowledge and pursuing new research. Alter, 14: 4, … Continue reading.

Both women and people of colour with disabilities are particularly touched by hiring discrimination. The European Disability Forum reveals in its yearly report on the employment situation of persons with disabilities that in 2019, 49% of women with disabilities from 20 to 64 years old had a job, against 53% of their masculine counterpart^[82]European Disability Forum (2023). European Human Rights Reports, Issue 7. The Right to Work: the employment situation of persons with disabilities in Europe. … Continue reading. The forum contributed with ENAR, the European Network Against Racism and the Equinox Initiative for Racial Justice to write this report, highlighting a real awareness of these problematics. In 2023, the forum recommends to the initiatives aiming to promote the employment of persons with disabilities to try to include populations particularly affected by unemployment, such as women with disabilities, immigrants or refugees with disabilities, people with disabilities from ethnic minorities, or having multiple disabilities^[83]European Disability Forum (2023). European Human Rights Reports, Issue 7. The Right to Work: the employment situation of persons with disabilities in Europe. … Continue reading. In 2020, 47% of people with disabilities born outside of the European Union have a job, against 51.7% for Europeans^[84]European Commission (2020). European comparative data on Europe 2020 and persons with disabilities: Labour market, education, poverty and health analysis and trends. The difficulty to obtain statistics for disabled women of colour is symptomatic of this invisibilization.

Regarding the employment access, there exist differences between ethnicities and disabilities. For example, the unemployment rate in autistic women and Muslim women is particularly high. It represents 90% in the European autistic population and is even higher with autistic women^[85]European Parliament (26 September 2023). Motion for a resolution on harmonising the rights of autistic people. https://www.europarl.europa.eu/doceo/document/B-9-2023-0390_EN.html#_ftn10. Muslim women are three times as much unemployed than women in general, the veil being an obstacle to the access to employment because of legislation, notably in France^[86]Kheniche O. (11 avril 2013). Voile islamique ou travail ? Des femmes face au dilemme. France Info. It underlines the difficulty to analyze disability as a uniform social category, since an important number of different conditions and infirmities are gathered under this term, the same way the term “people of color” encompasses different populations.

In this way, their disability maintains the poverty and discrimination factors that already amplified their disability in their home countries.

Repoliticising the question of disability and not reducing discriminations to interpersonal relations

The discriminations endured by these women are not adding up independently one to another; they maintain each other to create a specific discrimination to migrating women of colour with disabilities. The disability being the interaction of an infirmity and social reject, their disability is the result of an aggravated infirmity of misogyny and the poverty they suffer from. This article has described three different contexts of women with disabilities, in their original countries in the Global South, during the migrating journey and once arrived in the Global North, showing to what extend their disabilities maintain each other and show different types of discriminations (institutional, interpersonal…).

If women struggle to get these discriminations recognized, including in their known as “developed” host countries, it is also due to the fact that the topic of disabilities struggles to be recognized as a political issue and not only a charitable concern, which affects the awareness of its stakes in an intersectional perspective. The social model of disability, that privileges a political action, is hardly taken into account to the profit of a charity model. Yet “the problem of disability is political and social, and doesn’t only fall under charity”^[87]Podcast France Inter. (7 février 2021). Elisa Rojas, avocate : « Le problème du handicap, c’est politique et social. Ça ne relève pas du caritatif ». … Continue reading, as explained by Elisa Rojas, attorney born in Chile. If the social model of disability underlines to what extend these women feel vulnerable, Elisa Rojas rejects the analysis of the intersectionality only through the prism of vulnerability associated to women with disabilities in an almost systematic way.

In Disability and Forced Migration, Shaun Grech and Maria Pisani, specialists in the topic of disability in Southern countries, explain that the bringing of attention on refugees with disabilities only under the prism of their vulnerability ends up denying their agency^[88]Grech S., Pisani M. (2022). Disability and Forced Migration: Critical Connections and the Global South Debates, Disability Law and Human Rights, Palgrave Studies in Disability and International … Continue reading.

The perspective of empowerment that women would need is missing. When initiatives dedicated to disabled women of the Global South have adopted a perspective of empowerment, they have proven to be efficient. One of the defended solutions by the activists is to let them have access to decisional positions, often denied to people with disabilities, and especially to women with disabilities. The main defended solution is to consider them as fully-fledged political actors and give them the means to be so.