Gender issues

Posters (48x60cm) & large format prints (60x80cm)

Studio portraits of a representative sample of women and girls who live permanently with a disability due to injury or illness attributed to sociocultural and environmental factors. The photographs are combined with testemonies of the inequalities and rights violations people with disabilities experience, as well as informations and insights relevant to the causes and consequences of disability in Mozambique (including beliefs and attitudes towards disability). The initiative gives priority to women and girls as they face multiple forms of discrimination and are more likely to be victims of abuse and exclusion.

Each poster is linked with one of the eight general principles of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD).

“Look”

DVD PAL 16:9, 15’, VO Port. Eng./Port. sub., 2009

Lucas and Isaura are blind. They live and work in Maputo city, and they have similar aspirations as the rest of the population. They practice activities generally available exclusively to people without disabilities and they are perfectly integrated in society. However, they often encounter barriers and negative attitudes. This short film aims to give a positive perception about people with disabilities, to briefly describe the physical and social barriers they face on a day-to-day basis and thereby demonstrating the importance of the ratification of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) by the Mozambican government.

Organizations for People with Disabilities (DPOs) & their activities in Mozambique

Postcards (10x15cm) with braille transcriptions

Photography of activities such as Braille education, contemporary dance, swimming, music, athletism and vocational training (computer, massage, arts & crafts, for example) to promote awareness of the capacities and contributions of persons with disabilities.

Each postcard is linked with an article of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD).

Awareness Campaign on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (Mozambique)

According to the World Health Organisation, an estimated 10% of the world’s population - approximately 650 million people, of which 200 million are children - experience some form of disability and 80% of all people with disabilities live in developing countries.

In post-war Mozambique, 75 % of the total population live below the international poverty line. The majority of people with disabilities live in isolated rural areas and have no acess to adequate health care or educational facilities. The existing resources are not sufficient to detect in time and prevent the situation from getting worse as well as providing rehabilitation services. Though people with disabilities are considered to be enjoying the same rights and possessing equal opportunities as people without disabilities, their life is made difficult by the physical and social barriers which limit their participation within the society. Because of these barriers, millions of children and adults are segregated and degraded. Optimal social participation for an individual requires to a large extent that necessary adaptations and assistance are in place.

The UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities reaffirms that all persons with all types of disabilities must enjoy all human rights and fundamental freedoms. It clarifies and qualifies how all categories of rights apply to persons with disabilities and identifies areas where adaptations have to be made for persons with disabilities to effectively exercise their rights and areas where their rights have been violated, and where protection of rights must be reinforced. Mozambique signed the Convention on the 30th of March 2007 but has not ratified it yet.