Fact-check: No, WHO is not considering failure to find a sexual partner as a disability

Reports that the definition is going to change or that people who can’t find a partner will soon be considered disabled are not true.

Writer: Ochaya Jackson

A claim attributed to a report from WHO (World Health Organization) that failure to find a sexual partner is now categorized as a disability is false.

The report appeared to warn people to consider having sex or being labelled as disabled. The claim in the screenshot is being circulated on WhatsApp.

“Failure to find a sexual partner [is] now a disability,” reads the image document circulating on social media platforms.

“It is either you have sex or you are considered disabled,” it added.

***The screenshot image of the document claim***

Has the World Health Organisation (WHO) said anything of that sort?

The document is not genuine and there is no official release of a report by the World Health Organization labeling failure to find a sexual partner as a disability. However, according to WHO’s published statement in 2016 on sexual and reproductive health, its definition of infertility has not changed.

WHO as of 2020 defined infertility as “a disease of the male or female reproductive system defined by the failure to achieve a pregnancy after 12 months or more of regular unprotected sexual intercourse.”

Besides, the claim was fact-checked by Reuters news agency in 2021 and was found to be false, and a correspondent tweet by WHO in 2016 affirmed that the definition of infertility was not changed.

AFP also fact-checked the claim in 2019 where it was found to be false. However, it cited the WHO representative in Kenya that time Rudi Eggers, who said the idea was sourced from WHO outdated policy document released in 2011 and was no longer existing online.

Conclusion

The WHO has not considered failure to have a sexual partner as a disability and there is no current policy consideration on labeling it as such.

This fact-check was published by 211 Check with support from Code for Africa’s PesaCheck and the African Fact-Checking Alliance.