��ɫ��Ƶ

Wednesday, October 15, 14:00, on MS Teams (contact department for meeting link) Persons with disabilities are a marginalised population, and their access to Maternal, Sexual and Reproductive Health (MSRH) has been neglected for decades due to social and cultural myths, beliefs and misconceptions regarding disability. They have continued to face significant barriers in access to reproductive health services. Their plight was even more perilous during the COVID-19 period. Using qualitative research method and employing phenomenological and descriptive approaches, the study examined the context of access to reproductive services in Uganda using 40 respondents within central Uganda. The data analysis, using NVivo, revealed several barriers to access to reproductive health services for persons with disabilities including, institutional, attitudinal and individual barriers. There were barriers more prominent during the COVID-19 period, mostly associated with the lock downs. It is recommended that more deliberate policies and programming need to be put in place to enhance access to reproductive health services for persons with disabilities. This could be achieved, among others, through aligning policies and programming with the extant directive of Article 25 of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) and Goals three and five of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).