Refugees Asylum Seekers with Disabilities in Zimbabwe: Structural Marginalisation, Policy Commitments, and the Imperative for Disability Inclusive Refugee Protection

Abstract

Refugees and asylum seekers with disabilities occupy a profoundly marginal position within contemporary forced migration regimes, shaped by intersecting structures of displacement, disability, poverty, gender, and restrictive legal environments. In Zimbabwe, these vulnerabilities are intensified by an encampment based refugee policy, enduring economic precarity, and historically weak disability inclusion mechanisms. This article critically examines the status and experiences of refugees and asylum seekers with disabilities in Zimbabwe through a policy, law, practice analytical lens, interrogating the disconnect between normative commitments and lived realities. Anchored in international refugee and disability rights instruments, and national frameworks including Zimbabwe’s National Disability Policy (2021), the Persons with Disabilities Act (2025), and the Ministry of Primary and Secondary Education’s Safeguarding, Gender Equity, Disability and Social Inclusion (GEDSI) Strategy, the article synthesises academic scholarship and institutional evidence to assess the extent to which these frameworks translate into meaningful inclusion. Drawing on Zimbabwean and African scholarship; particularly the works of Mandikiana, Mhlanga, Tarusarira, and others; alongside reports from UNHCR, IOM, UNICEF, Jesuit Refugee Service, Plan International, and Christian Blind Mission, the paper argues that refugee protection in Zimbabwe remains predominantly welfare oriented, fragmented, and insufficiently disability responsive. It contends that refugees with disabilities continue to be positioned as passive recipients of assistance rather than as rights holders and contributors to social development. The article concludes by calling for a paradigmatic shift toward rights based, disability inclusive, and development oriented refugee governance that embeds participation, accessibility, and intersectionality at the centre of refugee protection and national development planning.