Disabled women demand to be heard

Sidelined during the Beijing conference, and now at the 10 year review, disabled women are demanding to be heard.

“Our rights were not discussed fully at the Beijing conference in 1995 and we thought the New York conference was a window of opportunity for us to express ourselves. But what do we get, muted response to our concerns,” charged Mirlande Demers of Coalition Against Discrimination, an NGO based in Quebec, Canada.

Demers and other disabled women at the conference are frustrated that nobody seems to even care whether they are attending the conference or not.

“Because of our physical disability, it takes so much time and resources to come here. And it is so painful when we are not given a chance to express ourselves,” says Demers.

There has been no workshop on disabled women, the lobby complains. The group maintains that they have not received a response to complaints submitted to the sub-committee on the Commission on the Status of Women. But one of them has decided that she will not take all this lying down.

In the last four days, Dinah Radtke, the Chair of Women’s Committee of Disabled People International (DPI), has been literally going from one session to another in her wheel-chair, rallying support for seven issues as they relate to disabled women.

“We have to ensure that everyone goes home contented that their issues have been considered and the process has been fair to them,” says Radtke, who is also a Peer Counselor in Germany.

In a passionate appeal to the African NGO caucus meeting on Friday, she appealed to them to help make poverty, education, violence against disabled women, motherhood and sexuality, healthcare, HIV/Aids, and human rights - issues disabled women consider as being close to their hearts - visible in the Beijing declaration and Platform for Action.

Earlier, in her moving contribution during a panel discussion on Giving Beijing Force of Law, she described how disabled women are denied their right to sexuality and motherhood.

“Disabled women undergo sterilization just because people do not want to bear the burden of their motherhood. Even doctors think we are a special case and they do not hesitate to undertake such sterilisation. “

Disabled women are equally disadvantaged when it comes to HIV infection as they are vulnerable to rape and other forms of gender violence. In their position paper on Women with Disabilities, disabled women allege that many countries do not give priority to the education and training of disabled women.

The position paper recommends:

• Inclusive education systems that have no barriers and offer special support to disabled women.

• Effective programmes and legal measures to combat all sexual and other types of violence.

• Discriminating laws, especially with regard to sterilisation, be abolished.

• Special measures and programmes to protect women and girls from HIV/Aids be put in place.

• Women and girls with disabilities be recognised in key international strategies such as the World Bank poverty reduction strategy paper and the International Labour Organisation.

• All human rights instruments should recognise the unique situation of women with disabilities.