Overcoming Superstition and Stigma: Lois Auta on the Battle Against Disability-Based Violence
Lois Auta is a disability rights activist from Nigeria, Africa, who has fought for disabled women and girls since she was a teenager. Today, she is one of the most renowned disabled women in her country. Since 2019, she has held a variety of political roles; for instance, she served in the Nigerian National Assembly in 2022, the country’s highest law-making body. Today, she is the Chief Executive Officer of the Cedar Seed Foundation, an organization that promotes the participation of women with disabilities in human rights-based development in Nigeria. She is also part of the Network of Women with Disabilities, another organization advocating for the rights of Nigerian women with disabilities.
Mama knows best
Lois Auta was born in Jos, Plateau State, Nigeria, on April 29th, 1980. When she was two, she contracted polio and shortly after became a wheelchair user. Growing up, Auta had a difficult time navigating Nigeria with her wheelchair. She says today, it has gotten a bit better, but when she became disabled, institutional, structural, and cultural barriers were almost impossible to overcome. There were no political structures to protect people with disabilities, and culturally, people found them either burdensome or scary.
“At some point, you start feeling differently from other children; I felt inferior,“ she says. Loneliness and depression slowly took over Auta’s life. She did not want to talk to anyone anymore. One day, her mother had enough. “She came into my room and said, ‘ You have to believe in yourself. Be thankful to God that you are still alive. Other children who were affected by this illness never woke up again! Be appreciative! These mobility aids are your gate to freedom! Get up and be proud of yourself,“ Auta remembers. It took some time for Lois Auta to realize that her mother was right. She says this wake-up call kickstarted something inside her: a certain self-confidence that she could achieve what she wanted, and a drive to find out what it actually was that she wanted to achieve: to make the world better for disabled people, particularly women and girls.
However, getting to where she is today was anything but easy. When young Auta was supposed to start school, many neighbors, extended family members, and friends advised Auta’s parents not to send her to school because of her disability. They told them it would be wiser to focus more on their children without disabilities rather than a girl who would, in their opinion, probably not need education anyway. Auta’s parents rejected the idea from the start. Her father, who worked as a driver for a company, would make sure that she got to school before he went to work, and when she grew a little older, she had a walking aid that would help her get to school and back home.
She remembers missing a term at school when she had to go to the hospital for treatment, and when she returned, she worked so hard to become one of the best in her class. She says she didn’t care how hot it was sometimes, or whether it was pouring down with rain; she just wanted to make sure she got the best education that she could get. “If I hadn’t been so ambitious about my education, it might have all been different! You don’t get invited to the School World Forum in Oxford or the Economic World Forum if you cannot express yourself. And you need to express yourself to fight for your rights,“ she says.
She sometimes thinks back to these days and reflects on where she is now. She is a global change-maker, a leader, the first black woman from Africa with a disability named a Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum in 2017!
In May 2026, the President of Nigeria nominated Auta as one of seven women, and the only disabled woman, to become a board member of the governing Council of the National Center of Women Development. Globally, Auta has also become one of the most renowned African advocates for disabled people, especially women in Africa. For Auta, this is a big honor since she is certain it will help her meet more disabled women whom she can help fulfill their ambitions, just as Auta did.
Network of Women with Disabilities
One of the organizations that Auta focuses on is the Network of Women with Disabilities, which was founded in 2021. They focus on economic development, political participation, mentorship, leadership, and health. Health, for example, covers issues such as mental health or family planning, but also sexual exploitation, abuse, or harassment. Economic development and leadership deal with different subjects such as arts or agriculture. For Auta, it is important that women, especially disabled women, are capable of living independently and making their own decisions, as it is so easy otherwise to become a victim of what Auta calls disability-based violence.
Disability-based violence
A big problem that particularly disabled women face in Africa is that they don’t meet the stereotypical ideas of the traditional values of many people within society. In many ways, a disabled girl can be perceived as a problem to the family, as she almost has no chance of getting married. But marriage raises your status as a woman. Auta experienced it herself. “All my sisters got married. Even my younger sisters. And until I was in my late 30s, I wasn’t married.“ In many ways, her education helped her to live independently still and become a successful woman, but she knows that she is privileged.
“Women with disabilities fight on so many battlefields at once. Barriers can be attitude-based; they can be institutional, medical or infrastructural. And then to even top it up, we live in this patriarchal society that firmly believes that disabled women cannot be good wives or mothers. And that is why I call it disability-based violence. Because we face the same violence that any other woman faces, but on top of that we are far more at risk of experiencing different ways of physical and mental violence due to our disability,“ Auta explains. Her younger sister married when she was 20, but died two years later when she got cancer. At that time, she had a seven-month-old daughter. Only then did the family consider that Lois, who was single, could be capable of taking care of a child. Since then, her niece, who is now 12, has been living with Auta and considers her the only mother she knows. It made Auta aware that people need to finally lose their fear of disabled mothers. “They are mums that will take care of and love their children just the same as non-disabled ones. But the lack of education, superstition and cultural misconceptions make it so difficult,“ she says.
Love, marriage and how ableism destroys them
When Auta was 39, she met Mr. Innocent during one of her campaigns. They fell in love and got married. But the marriage didn’t last long. Less than five years later, they got divorced. Reflecting on it, Auta says that every disabled woman is under pressure the moment she even thinks about falling in love. Because unlike other couples, couples where one or both partners have a disability are almost permanently scrutinized by society, as if they have to prove to everyone that they have the right to be happy together. And sometimes the pressure is just too much.
“Innocent started listening to people saying that I was using him. She will make you collapse or die out of frustration. You are doing far too much for her. The thing was, we traveled around the world and managed our businesses together. So, they were telling him that he was doing everything for me, while I wasn’t doing enough, and he should have businesses under his own name rather than both our names, or even mine. And I am an educated woman; why shouldn’t I have a property or business if I work for that money! And so, we ended our marriage,“ Lois Auta says. Because of the patriarchal system in many African countries, women suffer more. She explains that sometimes a man would fall in love with a disabled woman and would want to go and see her family to get married. Still, her family and friends tell him not to risk it, as her family must have witchcraft rooted in it, and that that was the reason for their daughter being disabled. These superstitious beliefs often scare men off. Besides the harmful beliefs and mental pressure on disabled women, there is also a serious risk of physical violence. Auta remembers an actual incident from her own experience.
“Once I met a man and he took me home to meet his family,“ she explains. “The moment they realized I was disabled, the whole family gathered around him and told him he had exactly five minutes to leave the house with me, otherwise they’d deal with him. It was scary,“ she remembers.
Another problem for African women is poverty. When you are not married, there is no other income, and you have to work. But even when you are educated, it is hard to find employment as employers don’t think you are capable of doing the work a non-disabled person can do. She says that although Nigeria has implemented a 5 percent quota for disabled people, a lot of employers don’t follow the law.
The state of Nigeria and disability
In 2018, Nigeria implemented a Disability Act that covered some issues like employment and health, Auta says, but a lot is still missing. For example, the rights of disabled women aren’t covered, and the monitoring of whether the law is being followed needs to be improved. “For example, the new role I was given at the Center for Women Development is great, but the offices aren’t wheelchair accessible. So, I told them, I am not going to start working there until they do make it accessible. Because once you start looking for your own solutions, they won’t do anything, and nothing will ever change.“
But she also sees at least some positive change. For example, the employment quota by law is supposed to be 5 percent for disabled people. According to Auta, the average now lies at 2,5 per cent, which is more than it used to be before the Nigerian Disability Act was implemented, she explains. She hopes that in five years they might finally reach 5 percent, especially as awareness increases and more organizations prioritize the matter. The problem lies more in finding ways to implement the law and reach the goals that the country has set for itself, she says, and to find educated disabled leaders who are willing to push for change.
“The big issue is that a lot of the people who are affected by the laws cannot speak for themselves. Not only because some are cognitively not able to do so, or because they are not educated enough, but because we have a lot of disabled people who have been hidden away at home by their parents until they were adults, so that nobody would know the family had a disabled child. Obviously, you cannot keep an adult at home unless you chain them to the bed. But when these people go out into the world, they have no idea of it. And they definitely don’t know how to express themselves or fight for their rights.“ Auta thinks that these educational and social barriers are partly the reason why people from developing countries in general, not just Nigeria, often go abroad for sporting events, and try not to come back. She explains that this could be beneficial to their countries.
The potential of African countries
Auta hopes that once the law in Nigeria gets tidied up and it’s being made sure that laws are followed, a lot could change for disabled people. Many African countries have a young population with the will to change. It needs more disabled experts to become African leaders and never stop nagging and pestering the governments for reform and change, just like Auta continues to do.
