Practical Examples: Disability versus Culture, Religion

How do different cultural communities and religious faith explain and respond to disability?

“Universally, societies have explanations for why some individuals (and not others) are disabled, how individuals with disabilities are to be treated, what roles are appropriate (and inappropriate) for such individuals and what rights and responsibilities individuals with disability are either entitled to or denied” (Scheer and Groce, 1988).

In many countries, having a disability is attributed to having sinned or offended the spirits. This might have occurred through sins committed by ancestors or by the person with the disability themselves in this or a previous life. The idea that disabilities can be “caught” is quite common across the world. This results mostly in actions to protect pregnant women from seeing, hearing or touching people with disability or even their technical aids. Examples of this explanation of disability can be found all over the world, including even the United States

In the Philippines, a woman gave birth to a baby who was unable to move his limbs. Her explanation of her son's disability was that she had worked in view of a statue of a national hero during her pregnancy and must have caught the 'stiffness of the limbs'.

Culturally, in many parts of Malawi, it was once believed – and such belief is alleged to continue – that a child with disabilities is considered a curse and consequently care for such a child is not optimal. According to a disability rights advocate in Kasungu, for example, there have been bizarre stories in the district where children born with disability were being silently slain as they were thought to have a curse. However, there is significant positive change due to increased awareness initiatives.

“It has been our cultural tradition here; people have believed for a very long time that such children were a bad omen to society and those who were exceptionally lucky to survive were being discriminated against,” said late Andrew Machisa (RIP), former Chairperson for the Association of Physical Disabilities (APDM) in Kasungu.

A study published in 2005 by Malawi Human Rights Commission on “Cultural Practices and their Impact on the Enjoyment of Human Rights, Particularly the Rights of Women and Children in Malawi” found that although children with disabilities were accepted as God’s gift, they were considered a burden. In Chitipa parents went as far as seeking assistance from the witchdoctor.

A qualitative study conducted in 2005 by Stine Hellum Braathen on attitudes and beliefs against albinism in Malawi singles out a number of cultural myths related to albinism. The most common was that if a pregnant woman looks at a person with albinism, she would have a child with albinism herself unless if she spits on the ground. They say if you look at an albino, and you don’t spit, you give birth to an albino.