On the catwalk in Ivory Coast, disabled models are smashing taboos

11 December 2021, Mumbai:

In a groundbreaking attack on taboo and stigma, twenty models with impairments walked the runway in Ivory Coast. In an event entitled "Strong and Beautiful Together," the models wore red suits, traditional Sahelian boubou robes, multi-colored African bogolan prints, and a blue tunic with printed designs to show off the latest works of Abidjan designers.

After a car accident, Grace Beho's right forearm was amputated.

She founded the Mougnan Foundation six months ago with the goal of improving the quality of life for disadvantaged Ivorian women. In the Guerre language of western Ivory Coast, its name means "going on despite challenges." "I believe that the women who will be watching us and who do not yet have confidence in themselves... will express themselves and show the world who they are," she added as she exited the platform.

Leslie Antsere, who has neurofibromatosis, a hereditary illness that may create disfiguring tumors, was overjoyed to be a part of an event that had relieved her of her "guilt." Despite having a foot problem, the fashion show's MC, Nelly Aka, wore stiletto heels.

"We can go beyond ourselves and achieve many things even in a condition of incapacity," she remarked. "Overcoming handicaps is about embracing yourself; how others see and criticize you will have no bearing on who you are," she explained.

In front of an eager crowd in a hotel in the Ivorian economic capital, a model named Sylvia, dressed in a green and white outfit, launched the show by walking down the catwalk on crutches by the side of a swimming pool.

On December 3rd, the United Nations' International Day of Persons with Disabilities, event took place. Officially, 453,000 persons in Ivory Coast are handicapped in some form, accounting for 2% of the population. Such an occurrence is unheard of among them.

"In Ivory Coast, simply addressing a handicapped person in the realm of beauty is forbidden," said Ange Prisca Gnagbo, one of the event's organizers. "They're left out of all the beauty pageants," she continued.

However, such practices are established in the Ivory Coast, where impairments are frequently considered as a disease, as they are everywhere in Africa. "Many handicapped women are vulnerable, marginalized, and rejected. As a result, they withdraw for fear of being evaluated "Yves Ouya, a sociologist, agreed.

According to Dr. Abdoudramane Coulibaly, a World Health Organization expert and the leader of a disability NGO, the issue is also beset by a lack of political will. "Let's recommend to able-bodied folks that they walk for a day on crutches — (that way) we'll acquire more understanding than with huge speeches," he urged. "My hope is to see a disabled person make a reputation for himself or herself in sectors where doors have been closed in the future decades," Beho added.