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Gender has often been overlooked in the lives of people with intellectual disability, resulting in a limited understanding and service response. This is in part due to a lack of knowledge about the way people with intellectual disability negotiate and build a gendered identity. In this article we present research undertaken with six young women with an intellectual disability who worked with the first researcher to co-develop some stories from their lives. We show how, facilitated by an innovative method which focused on meaningful engagement, the women told stories of richly gendered lives and subjectivities. Their stories showed how gender can be a desired and productive subjectivity, and how consideration of gender can help to identify resistance and agency in their lives. Their stories illustrate how gender is necessary in forming a comprehensive understanding of the lives of women with intellectual disability.

Background: As the use of everyday technology is increasingly important for participation in daily activities, more in-depth knowledge of everyday technology use in relation to diagnosis and gender is needed. The purpose of this study was to investigate the stability of the perceived challenge of a variety of everyday technologies across different samples of varying diagnoses including both males and females.

Methods: This cross-sectional study used 643 data records from clinical and research samples, including persons with dementia or related disorders, acquired brain injury, intellectual disability, various mental or medical disorders, and adults without known diagnoses. The Everyday Technology Use Questionnaire, comprising 93 everyday technology artifacts and services (items) measuring the level of everyday technology challenge and relevance of and perceived ability to use these was used for data gathering. A two-faceted Rasch model in combination with differential item functioning (DIF) analyses were used for comparing item hierarchies across samples.

Results: Only three items (3.2%) demonstrated a clinically relevant DIF by gender, and nine items (9.7%) by diagnosis.

Discussion: The findings support a stable hierarchy of everyday technology challenge in home and community that can facilitate planning of an accessible and inclusive society from a technological departure point

Purpose: Women with disabilities are particularly vulnerable to violence and often at risk of being violated sexually. The study aimed to document the causes and consequences of sexual violence against women with disabilities in Mampong Municipality of Ashanti region in Ghana.

Methods: This exploratory study recruited 41 participants, made up of women living with intellectual, visual and hearing disabilities, were interviewed using convenience and snowball sampling techniques. 

Results: It was found that many participants had suffered sexual violence and factors such as poverty, rejection by families, isolation and unemployment were given as the cause. It was also found that these women suffered consequences such as unwanted pregnancies, divorce, outright rejection and psychological trauma.

Conclusion: The current situation of women with disabilities make it impossible for them to escape sexual violence. Therefore, it is essential that national awareness campaigns be fashioned to encourage people to provide support to their family members with disabilities. 

This volume of the African Disability Rights Yearbook is divided into three sections presenting articles, country reports and commentaries on regional developments, and has added a new feature in the form of a book review section. The first section (A) of the journal presents a number of articles on issues affecting people with disabilities in Africa, ranging from sexual and reproductive rights to socio-economic issues. Section B presents a number of country reports on Eritrea, Lesotho, Morocco, Sierra Leone, Swaziland, Tunisia. Section C presents two articles focussing on regional development; one on disability rights and emergency legislation, and another on the right to political participation for people with disabilities in Africa. Finally the journal presents a review of A.S. Kanter’s 2014 book "The development of disability rights under international law: From charity to human rights"

Volume 3

Support through care and protection within a medical framework, rather than through the idea of independence within the least restrictive environment, continues to guide service provision for intellectually disabled people in the sexuality area. Past practices have included use of involuntary sterilisation. This article outlines the outcome of a search for information undertaken because of concerns that use of sterilisation-related procedures may remain embedded in contemporary approaches to sexuality support management. Verified instances of hysterectomy carried out between 1991 and 2001 were uncovered. Documents tabled at a Parliamentary Select Committee in 2003 expressing concerns about use in relation to young disabled girls were also found. Requests for sterilisation-related procedures exemplify how the right of all vulnerable citizens to full bodily integrity is currently adjudicated in New Zealand. It is suggested that further research is needed to pinpoint and address the underlying social customs through which requests for such procedures are negotiated and resolved.