Women with Disabilities Impact UN Beijing+5 Meetings in New York

An estimated 10,000 women representing their governments or non-governmental organizations (NGOs) descended on New York City in early June to make their voices heard in the United Nations "Beijing+5" meetings. Among them was a small dedicated group of 65 women with disabilities from 31 countries around the world were among them, participating in both the overall activities and in a unique training program.

Beijing+5 is the short name given to the UN official review process of concrete achievements on behalf of women since its 1995 World Conference on Women in Beijing. The process included: (1) a special session of the UN General Assembly, June 5th-10th, where progress reports were given by UN officials responsible for women's issues and by governmental delegates; (2) development and adoption of an outcome document on priorities to ensure continued advances for women and girls in the 12 key areas* identified by the 1995 Beijing Platform for Action; and (3) a series of NGO activities designed to exchange current information and impact the outcome document.

Challenges & Results

One measure of the effectiveness of the disabled women's activities is the recognition given to their specific concerns in the arduously negotiated Final Outcome Document. Adopted by the June 10th UN General Assembly meeting, following several all-night re-write sessions, the document contains a political declaration and identifies further actions and initiatives to implement the Beijing Platform for Action.

It is an impressive achievement that disability concerns are mentioned at all in the outcome document, as the main energies of the meetings were directed toward problems which have worsened since 1995-such as the rise in numbers of women affected by HIV/AIDS, domestic violence, "honor killings" and trafficking in girls and women. Delegates and UN officials were also working overtime to prevent the gains made in the Beijing Platform from being watered down by the strong conservative factions, as reported widely in the mainstream press.

Overall, strong references were included in the document, identifying girls and women with disabilities as having particular concerns about violence and needing equal access to education, training, health care, rehabilitation and employment. The outcome document has been posted on the UN website.

The main goal of the disabled women's activities was to ensure that disabled girls and women were not just mentioned in the document as part of a "laundry list" of women facing multiple barriers, but also identified as having their own agenda, momentum and place within the women's movement.

Visibility

The presence of women with disabilities from 31 countries was perhaps most visible during UN Secretary General Kofi Annan's official welcome to Beijing+5 at a public ceremony held June 5th in Dag Hammarskjold Plaza. Thanks to the Beijing+5 host committee, a prominent space for the disability contingent was reserved in the front rows.

Somewhat less visible, but equally powerful was the disabled women's participation throughout the week, working with their national governmental delegations, their UN missions or other NGOs advocating for women's rights and services. Their job was to spread the word about resources offered by the growing number of disabled women's groups and to provide research and information articulating priorities. Another measure of results is that disabled girls and women were identified as priorities in the country reports presented to the UN General Assembly by Burkina Faso, Canada, Mexico, the Netherlands, United Arab Republic, Uganda and others.

General Assembly participation

The only General Assembly speech focused on disabled women's needs was given by the Hon. Florence Naiga, Uganda's Minister for Disability & Aging and a strong representative of Africa's grassroots disability movement. On-going support to the disability caucus was also given by the governmental delegations with disabled members. For example, Kicki Nordstrom, First Vice President, World Blind Union, was a member of the official Swedish delegation, and Judy Heumann, Assistant Secretary for Education, was part of the U.S. delegation.

Successful Collaborative Seminar

As one of the younger participants stated at the opening of the seminar, "This is my dream: to be surrounded by and working with talented disabled women and their allies from all over the world."

The June 1st-8th seminar and advocacy training brought together young deaf, blind and physically disabled women from Africa, Asia, & the Pacific, Eastern Europe, the Middle East and North & South America. An intense schedule had been planned by the organizers: Rehabilitation International (Barbara Duncan & Harilyn Rousso), World Institute on Disability (Kathy Martinez), Disabled People's International (Lucy Wong-Hernandez), World Federation of the Deaf (Carol-Lee Aquiline) and the World Blind Union (Kicki Nordstrom).

Several of the seminar planners had represented their organizations at the original 1995 Beijing conference and at this meeting served as seminar faculty and mentors to the younger participants.

Ambitious Objectives

The ambitious objectives for the week were:

1. to provide an historical overview of the UN and its work on behalf of women and people with disabilities
2. to introduce the international disability organizations and their work on women's issues
3. to review the international research on girls and women with disabilities
4. to create opportunities for the participants to mentor each other, become a cohesive group and have an impact on the outcomes of the UN Beijing+5 meetings
5. to learn about disabled women's activities in the countries represented by the participants.

Sponsors

The Beijing+5 Seminar was one of a 1999-2000 series of initiatives to improve employment prospects for women with disabilities sponsored by the U.S. Social Security Administration and Departments of Education & Health & Human Services. Other sponsors of the Beijing+5 seminar were: the U.S. Agency for International Development, the UN Disability Unit, UNICEF, the Women's Foundation, the Ford Foundation, the Sister Fund and the Third Wave, all of which provided scholarships for women with disabilities or in-kind services, such as sign language interpretation and meeting facilities.

Diverse Participants

An unusually diverse group of young participants, ages 18-36, passed the application process and flew from around the globe to reach New York City. Most had never been to the USA and many were traveling internationally for the first time. Participants came from: China, Australia, Nepal, India, the Philippines, Madagascar, Kenya, South Africa, Zambia, Malawi, Tanzania, Namibia, Uganda, Zimbabwe, Eritrea, Ghana, Brazil, Panama, Mexico, Guatemala, Chile, Colombia, Peru, Ireland, Spain, Germany, Denmark, Latvia, Sweden, Canada and from throughout the USA. (A participants list appears as an appendix to this report.)

All of the participants were involved in local or national disability groups in their home countries, many in leadership positions, while some are still working on their graduate or post-graduate degrees.

Professions represented included:

• biologist
• ombudsman
• lawyer
• social worker
• occupational therapist
• community development worker
• professor
• government staff
• teacher
• manager or chief executive of organization
• employment specialist
• leadership development trainer
• peer counselor
• journalist

Approximately 10 of the participants were deaf, another 5 or so were blind and the balance had a range of physical disabilities, including those caused by polio, cerebral palsy, spinal cord injury, burns, muscular dystrophy, lupus and short stature. A couple participants were disabled by war and/or landmines.

Seminar Highlights

According to the majority of the seminar evaluations received, and informal reactions conveyed to the sponsors, some of the most valuable aspects were:

• presentation by Harilyn Rousso of her international review of research on disabled women and girls;
• presentation by Prof. Theresia Degener, LLM of Bochum University, Germany, on human rights law and disability rights;
• presentation of Prof. Nora Groce of Yale University on development of international disability-related policies;
• presentations by UNICEF staff and consultants, Dan O'Dell, Sheldon , Barbara Kolucki, Gulbadan Habibi and Rosangela Berman Bieler, on programs in childhood disability; and
• country reports from the participants.

Also cited as critical were the daily reports from the frontlines by representatives of governments and NGOs who were involved in the political negotiations about the outcome document or other issues.

Keeping the seminar informed and acting as advisors were:

• Kathy Blakesly of USAID's Women in Development division;
• Rami Rabby, U.S. Mission to the UN;
• Anneli Joneken, European Disability Forum; and
• The Hon. Florence Naiga, Uganda's Minster for Disability & Aging

Seminar Assignments

In addition to the work described above, all participants were required to carry out individual or to take part in group assignments that would progress the status of women and girls with disabilities. Some assignments were short-term, aimed at the Beijing+5 process and completed on site, while others are long-range and will require future efforts.

Examples are:

• The active, "hands-on" contingent of deaf women decided to organize a network for young, deaf women under the auspices of the World Federation of the Deaf, and already outlined roles for many of the women present, such as web announcements in English & French;
• Preparation of an article about Beijing+5 in Spanish for the leading feminist journal in Guatemala;
• Collaboration by two participants on an article explaining the gender-based needs of disabled women to occupational therapists;
• Group work on a disability panel presented by participants from India, Sweden, Mexico and the USA on June 7th as part of the International Women's Health Conference at Hunter College;
• Meetings at missions to the UN and with country delegations to encourage consideration of needs of women with disabilities in national plans to advance women. Many of the participants were successful in arranging meetings with high level members of their missions or delegations;
• Participation in other NGO meetings, such as the Inter-Generational Dialogue on Disability & Aging;
• Visits to the UN General Assembly meetings (using the passes of DPI, RI and other groups in consultative status) to distribute Disability Caucus Fact Sheets,*
• Development of plans to host a similar seminar in India and in Latin America; and
• Plans to report back to women's organizations and or UN or USAID offices in their home countries, especially with project ideas to support women with disabilities in their efforts to achieve self-sufficiency.

"Passing the Torch" to the next generation

One of the underlying goals of the seminar was that the organizing groups would be identifying and preparing young women to take on the role of leadership and training for the next generation of women activists in the worldwide disability movement.

The high caliber of the participants and the wide range of their domestic and international experience with both women's issues and disability organizations was a major contribution to the success of the initiative.

The organizers felt a genuine pride in taking part in the beginning of the "passing of the torch" to the next generation of women leaders in the worldwide movement of people with disabilities.

One example of the spirit and ingenuity of the younger participants was how two of the blind women, Sylvia Quan of Guatemala and Maria Soledad of Chile, agilely managed to turn a stroll through a UN Exhibit of Women's Art into a meeting with UN Secretary General Kofi Annan. They took the opportunity to brief the Secretary General on women's disability issues.

Combined Seminar & Training Model

The organizations involved in planning the seminar agreed that although many aspects could have been improved with more time to coordinate and more funds for translation and interpretation, that the basic model was one that could be used effectively in the future. The model consisted of the following components: intensive academic classes utilizing faculty and mentors with international expertise in disability, human rights and women's issues; exchange of information about the situation of women with disabilities in the countries represented; followed by "hands on" advocacy, practical assignments and participation in Beijing+5 activities. As far as we aware, this was the first training specifically designed to provide historical background in the international disability and women's movements, combined with the opportunity for hands-on advocacy.

Staff

The success of the week was due in large part to the following dedicated staff members of WID and RI: Jennifer Geagan, conference coordinator, Marylyn Thornton, financial planner, and Jeremy Thornton, photographer, all of WID; and Barbara Artusa, comptroller, Leonor Coello, Spanish language specialist, and Marie-Chantal Joseph, French language specialist, all staff or consultants of RI. Melinda Levine of the UN staff was also an outstanding volunteer.