Pandemic has worsened woes of disabled women, says study

NEW DELHI: A survivor of domestic violence, a 42–year–old woman with a locomotor disability who lives in Thane in Maharashtra was forced to return to her marital home with her 5-year-old daughter in the middle of the lockdown when her paternal family said they could no longer support her physically and financially.
Separated from her husband and dependent on her brothers for physical assistance and financial support, she returned to her marital home using a set of keys she still had as her husband no longer lives there. He has also filed a divorce case in court. She is now living alone, is unable to pay the house rent and her daughter’s school fee while she is trying to survive with the little money she has in her savings and a nominal support of about Rs 5,000 that her husband sends sometimes for house expenses.
This case study is part of a report “Neglected and Forgotten: Women with disabilities during the Covid crisis in India” put together by civil society body, Rising Flame and Sightsavers India . In case of women with disabilities,it says, domestic violence is not just about physical and emotional abuse but about abandonment, deprivation from assistive devices, medicines and much needed essentials to get through the daily routine.