We might have just have seen the first local report of a woman with intellectual disability becoming a mother. Please note these are women before anything else.
On an international level she is not the first and will not be the last woman with intellectual disability to become a parent. It is no great surprise to me that this woman fell in love and had a child. Woman tend to fall in love and have children, marriage or not, intellectual disability or not. The issue is that people with intellectual disability are perceived as asexual by society.
The sexuality of people with intellectual disability has been ignored and feared from the beginning of time
The sexuality of people with intellectual disability has been ignored and feared, from the beginning of time, and not just in our country. Yet in many developed countries the stigma of asexuality has been challenged and progress has been made in developing strategies that empower people with disability to live an equally fulfilling life, where they have the same opportunities as anybody else.
European and international entities have put agendas in place so as to protect the rights of people with disability to have such opportunities. The European Manifesto on Basic Standards of Health Care for People with Intellectual Disabilities (2003, pg.13) says that “people with intellectual disabilities have the same human rights as other citizens”. Furthermore, the United Nations Economic and Social Council (Rule No.9) declares that “persons with disabilities must not be denied the opportunity to experience their sexuality, have sexual relationships and experience parenthood”. The Human Rights Act (Article 8) reconfirms the “right to respect for private and family life” for people with disability.
Once it is established that people with intellectual disability have a human right to a sexual identity, to procreate and to have a family, we can now move on to the measures that need to be set in place in order to protect and empower this minority group. Such measures are all set in a framework of support.
The initial support is to determine whether the person with intellectual disability is in a position to consent to having a sexual relationship. Matters of capacity to consent have been ingrained in British law for decades now, while Malta is only just starting to bring the dust out from under the carpet as the National Commission Persons with Disability works towards implementation of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities.
For those unfamiliar with capacity to consent situations related to sexual activity, these are determined by the persons’ ability to make informed choices, given that he is given the information in an accessible way, and is able to process it and retain it, thus using it when faced with the circumstance. Therefore, support in the form of sex education is required from a young age and throughout the person’s life.
Accessible and ongoing sex education for people with intellectual disability has been a requirement stated in the policies within services providing for people with intellectual disability as well as in national sexuality policies in various countries. Such education would in turn empower the person with disability to make informed choices on whether to engage in a sexual activity or not, as well as on the use of contraception and family planning.
To remain on the theme of support and social justice, we have to look at the social support given to people with intellectual disability at different stages of their adult life. We are not as yet a society giving people with intellectual disability the opportunity of being autonomous, which takes them further from being independent and deciding where and with whom to live. We are not supporting adults with disability to be part of our communities and truly be able to live up to their rights.
Furthermore, rather than shouldering the responsibilities, our country lets the respective families do so. It is this lack of resources in this country that endorses institutionalisation. Assuming that the respective families of persons with disability will give all the required support is far from social justice. There are those blessed with a supportive family, who are ready to assume responsibility for all the needs of the mother and her child without separating the two from each other.
But there have been other circumstances where women with disability, and not necessarily intellectual disability, have been denied their right to motherhood and their child put in the care of a foster family, because they did not have social or family support and could not raise a child on their own.
Employment would certainly be a step forward towards financial stability and independence. Yet such an opportunity needs to be backed up by other forms of social support such as personal care assistance and public childcare that also caters for the needs of children with disability.
With a parliamentary secretary devoting his energy to the disability sector, we should be seeing measures being taken to fill those gaps that have been left open for too long.
Yet if we remain within the proposals of the PL election campaign’s manifesto, will truly progressive emancipation of people with disability, such as sex education, sexual health and family planning – which were not on the party’s agenda – be contemplated?
Claire Azzopardi Lane is Alternattiva Demokratika’s spokeswoman for disability issues.