Empowering Visually-Impaired Girls through Self Defence Training.

Adolescents with disability are among the most marginalized and vulnerable of the world’s young people. It has been estimated that 19 million children worldwide are visually impaired (VI) and of these, 1.4 million have irreversible blindness.   In India, an estimated 2, 36, 900 children up to the age of eighteen are visually impaired, which is around 11 percent of the total visually impaired population. Visually impaired children are 4 to 10 times more vulnerable to sexual abuse than their non-disabled peers and among them visually impaired girls are more exposed to abuses and violence. It is estimated that one in three girls and one in six boys are sexually abused before the age of 18.

Every disabled girl / woman needs to make herself tough -enough to at least ensure that nobody robs her of her respect or her life at large. Efforts to be made to develop capacity of the Visually-Impaired girls to identify potentially threatening situations and to seek the necessary support from appropriate people and organizations.

There have been cases of young visually challenged girls being sexually abused and such experiences distort her self-confidence. High rates of depression, anxiety, substance abuse, dissociative disorders, interpersonal dysfunction, sexual problems and suicidal ideation have all been identified to varying degrees among women who survive child sexual abuse. 

Training Visually Impaired girls on personal safety and empowering them with self-defence techniques will help with personal safety, boost their self-esteem and dignity.