Deaf women’s lived experiences of their constitutional rights in South Africa

abstract

Although the rights of women and people living with disabilities are constitutionally protected, Deaf women continue to experience discrimination due to their double stigmatisation as women and as Deaf. Their lack of substantive citizenship is evident in their lived experiences, the inaccessibility of services due to both inadequate sign language interpretation and bilingual education. The research draws on a theoretical framework drawn from feminism, Deaf studies and disability studies in order to understand South African Deaf women’s experience of human rights and how the situation in relation to human rights violations can be improved. The methodology used in the study is Participatory Action Research, and included weekly group discussions over a period of two months. The underlying issue that emerged as preventing Deaf, Black, unemployed women reliant on state health care from accessing their rights and participating as substantive citizens in an inclusive South African society is their lack of linguistic rights. Skilled South African Sign Language (SASL) interpreters are needed in order to access both the justice system and the health care sector in terms of their particular needs as women, in relation to domestic abuse and obstetric health care.

keywords:

• women
• Deaf women
• human rights
• South Africa

Acknowledgement

An immense thank you to my MA co-supervisors Dr Ruth Morgan, a lecturer in the South African Sign Language (SASL) Department at the University of the Witwatersrand and Dr Barbara Boswell, Senior Lecturer in English Studies at Wits. Your encouragement, writing tutelage and mentorship are greatly appreciated.

Notes

1. I use the convention of Biko Black when referring to participating women as Black in that it is not necessarily a matter of their pigmentation but rather their mental attitude and self-identification (Biko, 1971).

2. I use the convention of writing Deaf with a capital ‘D’ to denote cultural Deafhood as opposed to audiological deafness written with a small ‘d’ (see Woodward, 1972). I am aware of post- modern conventions of using d/D to denote a more fluid continuum between ‘d’eaf and ‘D’eaf (Wrigley, 1996; Monaghan, 2003) and the difficulties inherent in this duality but follow the preference of South African Deaf people for self-identifying as capital ‘D’ Deaf.

3. For the purpose of this article, I define womanhood as the state of being a woman, with all the women involved in the focus groups having self-identified as such. I also use Campbell’s (1983 cited by Jankowski, 2002) differentiation of personhood versus womanhood where personhood assumes that men and women are equal, while womanhood stresses the differences between the two.

4. see: http://www.sabc.co.za/news/a/6e6bda004b3a30849594ff445cadceaa/SchoolundefinedforundefineddeafundefinedinundefinedDurbanundefinedachievesundefined100undefinedpassundefinedrate-20160701, site accessed 6 May 2016.

5. see: http://www.iol.co.za/news/crime-courts/up-to-3-600-rapes-in-sa-every-day-1.1466429, site accessed 7 May 2016.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Tshegofatso Senne

TSHEGOFATSO SENNE is a South African Sign Language (SASL) Masters student from the University of the Witwatersrand. Her honours research, titled ‘What are Deaf women’s experiences of human rights in South Africa?’ highlighted the double oppression that comes with being both Deaf and a woman. She plans to continue in academia and working with Deaf women with the aims of combatting the lack of information that may contribute to human rights violations by aiding implementation of systems that advocate for Deaf women.