Disabled people in Ethiopia: "If they see me, that's it"

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Mohammed Abdo grew up with two stories to explain why he is disabled. His mother, he says, believed in the power of the evil eye. A neighbor had this and made the boy sick. His father said: You had polio when you were two years old.

Abdo, 27, a graduate of sociology at Addis Ababa University in Ethiopia, says he does not care who is right. It would not change anything.

The future also occupies the young Ethiopian more than the past. He just finished his studies. He was very fortunate that it only took him two months to become a lecturer at Jimma University southeast of Addis Ababa. Because the stigma that brings the crutches and his stunted legs, is great.

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The United Nations estimates that 80 million people in Africa live with a disability. This also has to do with poverty. It is only since this year that the virus that causes polio is almost considered eradicated on the continent because enough African children have been given a mouthful.

However, another disability that results from poverty remains widespread: eye diseases such as gray or cataracts and conjunctivitis do not necessarily lead to permanent vision problems - if specialists were not so rare and expensive.

People with disabilities are often poorly integrated into African societies. Only a few go to school and later find a job. Mohammed Abdo's case shows that completing a degree can change that. But the way was not easy for him.

Heike Klovert / SPIEGEL ONLINE

Mohammed Abdo

Abdo is sitting on a plastic chair under cedar trees in the university's main campus. He sips at a hot milk with sugar and tells of his childhood.

In the past, he says, his paralysis hardly hindered him. Abdo grew up in Shashemene, a town five hours drive south of Addis Ababa. The school was close, his grades excellent. "The other kids needed me to help with their homework, so nobody bothered me." He could not walk so fast, but he was good at arm wrestling. An aid organization gave some money each month for the disabled child. Abdo was the eldest of six siblings.

The problems began, Abdo recalls, at the university. Six years ago, he passed the national entrance exam and enrolled for a degree. He started civil engineering, but he did not feel welcome on campus. A lecturer bullied him, he says. In the following academic year he moved to the Department of Sociology.

The state-owned Addis Ababa University, which employs more than 47,000 people, promotes special support for students with disabilities. Three years ago, it opened a learning center with 40 computers equipped with speech recognition software. No other university in East Africa has accepted so many disabled students, said the president at the opening ceremony. There were 400 at that time. That's less than one percent of the student body.

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Addis Ababa

They are far from evenly distributed across the 15 locations of the university. In the park-like main campus, where the faculties of sociology, linguistics and education as well as several libraries and student housing are located, estimated one in four young people on a cane, crutches or a wheelchair dependent.

Abdo got up to show his dorm. The disabled toilet in the men's dorm is a narrow concrete chamber. The toilet has neither glasses nor cover. From the ceiling dangles a rope, on the wall hangs a pole to hold on. But the door lock is broken and the floor so wet that Abdo sometimes slips away with the crutches. "I always wipe the foreign urine with a damp cloth before using the toilet," he says. The only shower for the disabled is in no better condition.

"There is no accessibility at any university in the country," says Abdo and smiles tormented. He had heard that from other students. Four to eight young men share a room at Addis Ababa University. Abdo slept on a mattress on the floor between dirty yellow walls last year. The windows under the ceiling are too high to look out. From the plywood cabinets protrude nails.

Five interviews, no commitment

For people with disabilities who can not easily climb into a bunk bed, pee while standing, or sit on a toilet bowl, such conditions are particularly degrading. Nevertheless, Abdo has decided to do even a master.

Because when he finished his bachelor, he returned to Shashemene and applied to all vacancies, which were eligible for him and which he could find on the net and in newspapers. He would have liked to work in a public agency, for an NGO, at a school or college. But he got no promise.

That he was invited to interviews at least five times, Abdo insists that he did not mention his disability in the cover letter. "But if they see me, that's it," he says. Then he is only a lame man who takes alms and can give nothing. "Most people judge me before they meet me," says Abdo. Every new beginning, every first encounter, therefore, greatly distresses him.

Heike Klovert / SPIEGEL ONLINE

Melaku Tekle, head of the ECDD, also had polio as a child

Melaku Tekle, 32, directs the Ethiopian Center for Disability and Development, ECDD for short, in Addis and knows many such stories. "Disability is considered a punishment of God," he says. "Some parents are so ashamed of their disabled children that they hide them at home."

Tekle and its approximately 70 employees are trying to raise awareness among Ethiopian authorities, ministries, educational institutions and companies about the needs of people with disabilities - and also what they could contribute to society. "It's worthwhile for employers to invest in them," says Tekle. People with disabilities are often very motivated once they are integrated into the labor market.

Tekle wants quotas like in Germany, where employers have to fill five percent of their jobs with severely handicapped people or pay a tax. However, handicapped people are much more often and longer unemployed in this country than people without any restrictions - and in Ethiopia, too, there are legal requirements that should promote equality.

Per-Anders Pettersson / Getty Images

Disabled beggars in Addis Ababa: Hardly any job and educational opportunities

A government statement of 2008 states: "Every employer should be responsible for creating suitable work and training conditions for people with disabilities." This also includes turning off an assistant for the disabled employee. Anyone who feels discriminated against when they award their job or at work can complain. The burden of proof lies with the bosses.

The same applies to schools and universities: In 2012, the Ministry of Education issued a guideline for the establishment of an "inclusive system" that offers "quality, relevant and fair" education and training opportunities to all children, young people and adults with special needs.

In practice, however, the Ethiopian society of inclusion is very far away. "An estimated eight percent of Ethiopian children with disabilities are enrolled," says Tekle. "The rest stays at home." The company network founded by ECDD has only 40 companies nationwide. And: "We do not get any money from the government." There is no pot, says Tekle, which could support efforts to increase diversity.

Mohammed Abdo speaks fluent English. He seems open-minded and self-confident. Actually, he would like to grant his disability less space in his life. However, he did not let go of the subject during his studies - the suffering of those affected and the need for education are too great.

Abdo wrote his master's thesis on the challenges of raising deafblind children. He interviewed eight mothers. One was so overwhelmed that she tied her son by the bed. Only three mothers had families to support them. All had to provide more children. Everyone felt socially excluded and guilty and feared for the future when their deafblind children grew up.

"I am also afraid of the future," says Abdo. He has a job now. But he has heard that finding a girlfriend could be difficult for him. A fellow student with visual impairment recently got married. He relates that relatives have betrayed his fiancée: she should look for a healthy man.

In order not to be discouraged, Abdo admonishes himself in such moments that he should be grateful: he can see and speak and does not need a wheelchair. Mostly that helps.

This article is part of the project Global Society, for which our reporters report from four continents. The project is long-term and supported by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

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