By Dinah Radtke
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Vice Chair Human Rights DPI
Chair of the Women’s Committee DPI
Presentation to the 4th International Women’s Conference in Paestum, Italy
Today I want to talk to you about our visibility, about our voice, the
voice of women with disabilities and I want to talk about the fact that
we have to lobby more for our rights, for our Human Rights.
Disabled women’s rights are women’s human rights.
During the last 20 years the awareness of disabled women about
themselves has grown. But if we look at ourselves objectively we can
clearly see that there is no real place for us in society. We are often
not recognised as women, as women with disabilities. We have to admit
honestly that most of the time we are regarded as disabled persons.
It is a fact that disabled women and girls are much marginalized and
mostly invisible to policy makers Only in Germany the situation for us
is different. We are recognised by our government as a minority group
with special needs.
Honestly I do not know of any other country in Europe where women with
disabilities appear and are considered in legislation apart from
anti-discrimination legislation. But I know that we have been lobbying
very hard for years in Germany before we had some success.
But what about our status, our visibility within the disability
movement. Here the situation is different. We became stronger although
the movement is still male dominated. We became more self confident. We
have been publishing books describing our situation. We founded
self-help groups We now even have networks of women with disabilities,
quite strong networks. We defined our specific issues like for example
our status as women, our sexuality, motherhood, bioethics, violence,
sexual violence, education and professional training, jobs, health care
and personal assistance. In all of these issues the needs of disabled
girls and women are different from those of disabled boys and men.. We
need to stress again and again that disabled women and girls are subject
to massive human rights violations without regard to their age, ethnic
origin, sexual orientation, class and religious or other status.
We have to draw attention to this fact. We have to make society, the
politicians aware of this and demand change, we demand recognition of
our rights. We really have to become more active, we have to fight for
our rights. And we need allies in this fight.
I just came back from New York last month where I attended the 49th
Session of the Commission on the status of women. About 6000 women from
161 countries where present mostly from non governmental organisations.
It was a so called mainstream event. That means mostly non disabled
women at least not visibly disabled women were gathered. Somehow I had
the feeling that partly I was still regarded as a poor disabled person
who has to be pitied.
Only when I started to speak and distributed position papers on disabled
women and girls, the situation changed. The women noticed that I had
something to say in a political way. They agreed that it is necessary
that disabled women demand change, demand inclusion, demand to be
treated as equals
Again I noticed, because it was so obvious, that we have to work more,
to combine our efforts to make disabled women and girls visible, heard
and respected. We have to talk about our special issues and demand
political change. We need strong anti-discrimination legislation, we
need legislation on personal assistance and we need legislation to
punish and fight violence against disabled girls and women to name only
some of the most pressing issues. Disabled girls and women need to be
included and especially mentioned in all relevant laws and regulations
passed by our own governments. We demand to be included in all the
relevant documents and conventions of the United Nations. For example at
the moment we lobby to be especially mentioned in the Convention on the
Rights and the dignity of disabled people and in the Millenium Declaration.
We must not be satisfied if we are told that disabled women are
mainstreamed within laws or agendas. We have to insist on being
mentioned explicitly otherwise we will be forgotten. We have become
increasingly invisible through mainstreaming.
We are women who face the same gendered discrimination whether in our
personal lives, in our organisations and in society. For example,
violence against women is most prevalent with disabled women. This is in
part due to a disabled women’s increased dependence on family or
institutions- both of which can become violent. As for violence within
institutions and at home, disabled women are further burdened because
their complaints are not taken as legitimate, it is not believed that
violence happened to them. Amnesty International’s collection of data on
sexual violence has only two lines on violence against disabled women
and girls. In all of the print material and publications that have been
distributed at the United Nations in March 2005 I have seen no mention
of disabled women and girls.
Unfortunately this is a fact. We have to change this.
We have organised this 4th European conference of disabled Women to draw
attention to the fact that disabled girls and women are especially
vulnerable to violence in a place where you should feel safe namely at
home. Not only are disabled women subject to violence committed by
relatives but also committed by their own assistants.
We have to make this fact public and we have to demand that we need
accessible, barrier-free Crisis Centres, we need counselling. Peer
counselling, we need self defence courses, we need police and courts who
respect us and believe us.
But although violence may happen in this close relationship of personal
assistance it is an indispensable service which we need in order to
live a self-determined life. That’s why we need good legislation on
personal assistance services in all countries. Every disabled girl and
woman (boy and men as well) must get the support they need depending on
the severity of the disability no matter whether it is a physical,
sensory, intellectual, and other disability. This enables us to
participate in all human activities. Examples include, parenting, sexual
activities, education, employment, environmental development, leisure,
culture and politics.
I know very well that in many European Countries disabled girls and
women can only dream of something like personal assistance. They have to
be content with the support their environment concedes to them.
I can only say don’t be afraid and ashamed to demand to live a dignified
life. Don’t be content to be cleaned and to be fed. Live has to offer
more to us than that Even if it sounds totally unrealistic to you in
your situation. You have to fight for your dream of a better life. I
know that it is extremely difficult to demand rights when you are
constantly told that there is no money for the assistance and for the
financial support you require. But you have to insist, you have the
right to participate in the life of the community, to live a decent life.
And we the disabled women have to define what a decent life means for
us. Not the politicians nor anybody else.
In the kit which we distribute here we you will find the proposal for a
European legislation on personal assistance This will help you in your
lobbying, in you advocacy.
It is unacceptable that an estimated number of one million disabled
European women and men have to live in residential institutions,
marginalised and invisible. For this forgotten population personal
assistance is one of the keys for moving back into the community
A voice of our own is needed to present facts, convincing arguments and
politically viable solutions that promote self-determination in
every-day life and break the culture of dependence that we have been
exposed to far too long.
We need a strong voice of our own to get a change. We need to empower
ourselves, We need training courses in financing, advocacy,
self-defence, peer counselling and peer support for ourselves.
We need to network far more among ourselves. Disabled women must know
about their rights. These right have to be in easy understandable
language and in braille so that all disabled women can understand them
We need allies in this fight for the recognition of our rights, our
Human Rights therefore we ask the international women’s movement to
support disabled women and girls. Include and make visible disabled
women’s rights in all of your publications and programs. When you are
hosting events consider the varying needs of participants so that can be
included.
We need to live in a world where there is peace, where our human rights
are respected, where we can live a self-determined life with the support
we need, where our diversity is regarded as cultural richness. We
disabled women and girls we are strong, we have courage and we are
beautiful.
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