Ableism

Voice | ‘Whether I have a disability or not, I am still me’

Jamila Mammadli, 26, was born in the village of Potu, in the Goychay District of Azerbaijan. She talks about love, her passion for the theatre, and the preconceptions about disability that are pervasive in Azerbaijan. ‘The problem arose on the day I was born; the doctor made a mistake. She pulled too hard to get me out of my mother’s womb, and it damaged my spinal column. At first, my parents didn’t realise. After half a year, when they saw that I was not fully moving, they realised that I had