WUNRN
http://arrow.org.my/adf-statement/
ASEAN DISABILITY FORUM & ALLIES CALL
FOR MORE INCLUSION OF PEOPLE WITH DISABILITIES IN POST-2015 PROGRAMS – WOMEN
People with disabilities remain a marginalized community.
Needs of people with disabilities remain invisible and not included within
policy documents at all levels – global, regional and local. Within this, women
with disabilities are further marginalized because of the double discrimination
on the basis of gender and on disability.
September 23, 2015 - We welcome the outcome document of the United Nations Summit for the adoption of the
post-2015 development agenda, which is a result of the hard work and
perseverance of the co-facilitators, Member States, UN agencies, civil society,
Major Groups and other stakeholders.
We, as representatives from the ASEAN Disability Forum,
our partners and allies would like to stress for more effective inclusion of
people with disabilities not only within the outcome document but also in terms
of implementation programmes. People with disabilities remain a marginalized
community. Needs of people with disabilities remain invisible and not included
within policy documents at all levels – global, regional and local. Within
this, women with disabilities are further marginalized because of the double
discrimination on the basis of gender and on disability.
We welcome the inclusion of human rights, gender equality
and empowerment of all women and girls in the preamble. The document reaffirms
the Programme of Action of the International Conference on Population and
Development (ICPD POA) and the Beijing Platform for Action (BPFA), and the
follow up of these conferences. We would also like to stress for the
inclusion of strong international commitments in declarations and documents
including the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities
(UNCRPD), the Rio+20 document, CEDAW declaration, the MDGs and finally the
Incheon strategy that are important documents our governments have ratified and
signed on to.
Goal 3 talks about
ensuring healthy lives and promoting wellbeing for all people at all ages. This
is particularly of interest to People With Disabilities (PWDs) including women
and girls with disabilities. Issues of maternal mortality and morbidity are
further exacerbated for PWDs who are often denied access and information on
maternal health services; women with disabilities are also more vulnerable to
HIV and AIDS and other diseases. Further, forced sterilization,
institutionalization and forced medical interventions are forms of violence
that women with disabilities (WWDs) are subjected to. WWDs must be included in
these discourses. Further, universal access to Sexual and Reproductive Health
(SRH) services including family planning and other RH services, along with
sexuality education will be incomplete if these do not include WWDs.
PWDs face a number of barriers including systemic
barriers, attitudinal barriers (in families and in societies). Girls and women
with disabilities also face additional barriers in schooling and education as
they usually get left behind in comparison to men and boys. We therefore
request for the need for better access to education for PWDs and especially for
women and girls with disabilities in Goal 4 of the document. We call for
better capacity development of teachers and instructors to be more sensitive to
issues of disability. We call for our governments to look into specific
challenges faced by PWDs in making education more inclusive for all.
There is greater need for inclusion of issues of PWDs
within Goal 5 of the document, which addresses concerns on gender
equality. 15% of the world’s populations are people with disabilities; within
this more than half are women with disabilities (World Health Organisation).
This population is therefore additionally vulnerable to risks of abuse,
violence and also trafficking. These issues must therefore be more effectively
included within the sustainable development agenda.
Goal 7 mentions important
issues of energy. Accessibility can get severely affected by availability and
access to energy. With inadequate access to energy, we won’t have good services
at schools, offices, and markets etc. Lack of effective energy systems for
cooking, can also affect PWD especially people with visual disability with
smoke etc. Lack of accessible energy also leads to discrimination. For example,
when lifts don’t work, PWD can’t come to work, can’t move around. Inadequate
access to energy also affects transport systems and thus affects mobility
especially for PWDs. Lack of mobility also affects sexual and
reproductive health and rights (SRHR) issues of WWD with less access to SRH
services. We therefore recommend for assurance of existing energy for all
services and buildings for transportation, better access to transportation and
energy to operate devices, machines and to work with Disabled People’s
Organisations (DPOs) to review the issues we have. Civil Society Organisations
(CSOs) should include DPOs and key persons in disability movement.
Most often for PWDs, systemic and structural barriers
lead people to feel ‘disabled’ instead of the disability itself. In Goal 9,
which addresses the need for building resilient infrastructure, we call for
better inclusion of concerns of people with disabilities. It is important to
look at better physical environments in the construction of buildings and roads
for better mobility. This would help in enhancing lives of PWDs and enable
better and independent living facilities. Dealing with physical environment is
a crucial cause of our disability. PWD may not feel they are disabled.
Infrastructure doesn’t only include building and environment accessible. It
also includes attitudes of society – this affects access of WWD. We call for
developing inclusive societies and infrastructures so that data systems do not
leave PWDs and WWDs out.
Goal 13 mentions combating
climate change and its impact on people. PWDs as a community are worst affected
in conditions of climate change and disaster situations. When PWD are impacted
from disaster, they have less access to reach safe spaces for shelter. In a
family with two or more children, families often protect non-disabled children
first thus jeopardizing lives of children with disabilities further. In an
example in Cambodia, during a disaster situation, PWDs had to face additional
challenges with inaccessible toilets and safe shelter spaces. Shelters were
often higher to reach thus making PWDs including people with visual impairments
and people using wheelchairs extremely vulnerable. People also need to be
transported from islands (in situations of disaster) to safe spaces and often
these situations exacerbate concerns of PWDs. We therefore call for improving
education and better preparation for disaster relief and in places of climate
change. More effective planning must be made to include PWD and especially WWDs
better. Capacities of government authorities must be developed so they have the
additional knowledge and empathetic understanding towards concerns of PWDs in
their programmes.
Goal 16 promoting peaceful
and inclusive societies for sustainable development will not be possible
without including it in national levels laws and policies. We recommend better
systems of sign language and other inclusive modes of communication including
audio-visual materials. We also need better access to information and
communication on access to justice including education officers working on laws
and policies. We also need more focus on criminal justice systems including
police, lawyers and judiciary.
We recommend better and disaggregated methods of data
collections to include issues of PWDs more effectively. We need better
qualitative and quantitative methods of generating evidence-based research on
PWDs.
Lastly, we reiterate and emphasize the inclusion and full
participation of PWDs in all planning, organizing, and implementation of the sustainable
development agenda to make this truly transformative and reaching out to
marginalized communities including people with disabilities.
Signed:
ARROW: The Asian-Pacific
Resource and Research Centre for Women (ARROW) is a regional non-profit women’s
organization based in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. We work towards achieving sexual
and reproductive health and rights for all through monitoring and
evidence-based research for better advocacy, building strong and effective
partnerships and networks, knowledge sharing through information
and communication and building, and improving organizational systems
for better outcomes.
ASEAN Disability Forum: The ASEAN Disability Forum (ADF) is a network composed by DPOs of the
ASEAN region. It is a platform, where DPOs coordinate actions to advocate for
disability inclusive policy formulation and implementation.
CREA, India: CREA is a feminist human rights organisation based in New Delhi, India. Together with partners from a diverse range of human rights movements and networks, CREA works to advance the rights of women and girls, and the sexual and reproductive freedoms of all people.