From just a ripe old age of 26, I have so much to be grateful for as I have been blessed enough to achieve in graduating in 2020 and being admitted to the bar as a lawyer early this year.
My name is Isabella Kila from Rigo, Central Province and being a person with disabilities has granted me a determination to rise above the noises of doubt and be the person I am today.
I am an advocate passionate about fighting for those like me living with disabilities. I have never regarded my physical being as a limitation to what I dream to achieve, it was more of embracing how strong I truly am as a person gifted by God to help those just like me and others that aren’t.
For some time now I have been attached with organizations and NGO’S so first and foremost is the Cheshire Disability Services. After I had graduated I joined the PNG Assembly of Disable people and the PNG Education Advocacy Network. These wonderful people go around advocating where possible and they required a representative because they are more specialized in the sustainable development goals. They wanted me to be a representative in that inclusive education role. So when they go out for awareness and advocacy jobs, I am there with them to talk to people about inclusive education, and in doing so I hope to shed some inspiration into their lives.
Recently I had attended a week long training session for family and sexual violence in relation to women and children, and I was asked to give a presentation, so naturally my presentation was about women and children with disabilities facing family and sexual violence. This is such an important and very sensitive topic.
I have posed this question before, “Do you think that women and children with disabilities are facing issues relating to family and sexual violence?” I was referred to a book called A Deeper Silence where three pacific island countries were named in answering my question: Kiribati, Solomon Islands and Tonga. This book is about the unheard experiences of women with disabilities that have had to face Sexual and Reproductive Health and Violence.
It is true that women with disabilities have great talents, skills and experiences. However, we are frequently constrained from opportunities to use these through systematic discrimination. Women with disabilities have experienced physical and sexual violence and this must end.
This book challenged me at a personal level because first of all I am a woman and secondly I am a woman living with an impairment, and what’s even more challenging is that I am a woman living with an impairment who has a legal profession. For people constrained by certain abilities to not be able to access justice in Papua New Guinea, lays quite a heavy weight on my shoulder personally.
I have learnt much from the training session that I attended and it has changed my approach towards these issues. When we talk about impairments or disabilities, we not only have to provide infrastructure but include assistive devices as well, because are the very things that will help them.
I hope to be able to provide through the help of necessary organizations to make accessible the infrastructures and assistive devices to the impaired and with disabilities.