DISABILITY

With the creation of the World Action Programme for the Disabled in 1982, the United Nations recommended that the least developed countries should start gathering statistical data which would make it possible to understand the size and demographic characteristics of this population group. In Mozambique, these statistics are of particular relevance, given the conflicts that the country has gone through in recent decades. Disability is defined as any loss of anomaly in a bodily organ or its function – for example: blindness, deafness, muteness, mental backwardness, loss of use of arms or legs etc..

According to the IIRGPH, in Mozambique there are 288,700 disabled people, of whom 222,900, or 77.2%, are physically disabled, 45,200 are mentally disabled (15.7%), and 20,600 or 7.1% are both physically and mentally disabled.

Table 12.1 shows the specific rates of disability by sex and indices of masculinity, according to age and area of residence. The overall rate is 1,889 per 100,000 inhabitants, with a higher level for men (2,113 against 1,684 for women). This difference may be related, in part, to the fact that men are more subjects to behaviour or professions that expose them to greater risk. It is also important to recall the greater male involvement in the war. As would be expected, the rates increase with age, since age increases the probability of acquiring a disability due to greater exposure to risk factors and to the weakening of the body.

Also according to Table 12.1, the rate of disability is higher in rural areas than in urban ones: 2,182 per 100,000 inhabitants as against 1,179. This difference may be due to the lesser availability of health services in the rural areas. Diseases that are not adequately treated (such as localised infections) may evolve into situations that end up in disability. Also, the population in the rural areas may have more limited access to foodstuffs than people living in towns, and are thus more exposed to nutritional problems, which may in turn lead to disabilities. Finally, since the country’s rural areas are zones of emigration, and since it is thought are less likely to emigrate (emigration is usually selective), it is possible that they are over-represented in the  rural population.