Upholding the Rights of Marginalized Groups of Persons with Disabilities, Including Women with Disabilities, Underrepresented Groups, and Intersectional Identities (COSP19 Side Event)

Hello.
Hello, Sowa.
Good morning, ladies and gentlemen.
Welcome, everybody to this side event, upholding the rights of marginalized groups of persons with disabilities, including women with disabilities, underrepresented groups, and intersectional identities.
This side event is organized by the Department of Empowerment of Persons with Disabilities, Thailand and the Disabled People's International, Korea.
It's sponsored and supported by the Permanent Mission of Thailand, to the United Nations, the Ministry of Health and Welfare of the Republic of Korea, and the International Disability Alliance.
My name is Sprim Gaba, I'm a foreign relations officer from the Department of Empowerment of Persons with Disabilities, Thailand.
I'm also a disability advocate and committed to advancing accessibility and inclusion.
My work focuses on inclusive education, accessible learning activities, and meaningful participation of persons with disabilities.
Today, I would like to speak about a principle that lines at the heart of meaningful disability inclusion, recognizing that person with disabilities are not a single or homogeneous group.
Over experiences are shaped by many intersecting identities, including gender, age, race, culture, socioeconomic status, geography, disability type, As a result, many people experience multiple forms of discrimination at the same time.
Women and girls with disabilities may face both gender based and disability related barriers.
Indigenous people with disabilities may experience the effects of ableism alongside historical inequalities.
Person with psychosocial or intellectual with disabilities often continue to face exclusion from leadership opportunities and decision making processes.
So we have learned that one of the greatest challenges facing disability inclusion efforts is that some voices remain underrepresented, even within disability conversation themselves.
The disability rights movement has achieved tremendous progress over the past 20 years, yet too often, policies are still developed without sufficient consultation with women with disabilities, youth with disabilities, person with psychosocial disabilities, persons with intellectual disabilities, and other marginalized communities.
The principles of living nothing about us without us must apply to everyone within the disabilities community.
Around the world, many continue to face higher rates of violence, economic marginalization, social exclusion, and barriers to education, employment, healthcare, and leadership opportunities.
Accessibility alone is not enough.
Inclusion must also be accompanied by dignity, autonomy, safety, and equal opportunity.
As we look to the future, we need to strengthen the rights of marginalized disability communities.
We need to ensure they have meaningful roles in decision making, invest in leadership development, and empress intersectionality in policy and practice.
Disability policies must recognize the different ways people experience discrimination and ensure that no one is left behind.
As we commemorate 20 years of CRPD, let us recommit ourselves to building future where every person with disability, regardless of their gender, age, race, culture, or disability type is included, value and empowered to participate fully in the society.
So before we begin, please note that the interpretation and sign language interpretations are available as range.
Speakers are kindly requested to speak clearly and keep to the allocated time so that all voices can be included within this 75 minute session.
Today's session focuses on multiple and intersecting forms of discrimination faced by women with disabilities and other underrepresented groups, including person with psychosocial disabilities, older persons with disabilities, migrants with disabilities, indigenous people with disabilities, and a person from minority communities.
We will begin with the congratulatory remarks, followed by the presentation and a short interactive dialogue.
Without any further ado, please join me in welcoming Her Excellency, miss Rashada Ste Pagun, Minister Counselor, Head of Chancellry of the Permanent Mission of Thailand, United Nations, for the congratulate remarks.
Please have the floor.
Thank you, colleagues, friends.
On behalf of the Permanent Mission of Thailand, I would like to extend a warm welcome to all distinguished participants for joining today's event.
I would like to express our appreciation to the Department of Empowerment of Persons with Disabilities, Ministry of Social Development and Human Security of Thailand, and the Ministry of Health and Welfare of the Republic of Korea, and our civil society partners, disabled people's International, Korea, or DPI and the transforming communities for inclusion global for co organizing and supporting this event.
Colleagues, this sided events aims to highlight the experience and hardship that women and people from these abilities, especially underrepresented groups often face.
The situation is often exacerbated by various socioeconomic factors, subjecting them to further intersecting, discrimination and negatively affecting their lives.
In accordance with this year's theme of CPRD at 20, today's discussion is a unique opportunity for us to reflect on the achievement made and to address the remaining gaps, as well as shaping the next phase of implementing the CPRD in the future.
Thailand is committed to enhancing opportunities and dignities for persons with disabilities throughout through the promotion of their rights in accordance with the CPRD.
We are proud that two nationals of Thailand have served on the committee of the Convention of the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, Mr.
Moon Tian Won Tan 2013-2020, and miss Aok Tong 2021 to 2024.
We remain committed to working with the International Committee to further promote and protect rights of persons with disability.
Also, as a member of the Human Rights Council for 2025 and 2020 to 2027, Thailand will continue our best efforts in the promotion and protection of human rights of people in various contexts, and we will continue to work with partners from all sectors to further strengthen human rights for all.
I look forward to valuable insights from today's discussions, including from speakers from Thailand.
I hope that with strong commitment from all of us here today, together, we continue to improve life of persons with disabilities no matter where they are.
I thank you.
Thank you very much.
Now, may I invite doctor Sonya Tarsi, Vice President of the International Disability Alliance, to share her remarks.
First of all, I am especially honored and privileged to be present here today because this is a very important occasion.
I am actually representing one of the most underrepresented groups of persons with disabilities since I am a deaf blind woman, which means that I really do understand how it is to be a participant and to be part of underrepresented groups personally.
Also, I will soon be elderly person with disabilities, so I think this is the right place for me to address you.
I am a Vice President of IDA, and I would like to share my remarks of the president, Nawaf Kaba.
That definitely supports this event and has sent me to share several things with you.
As well, I want to congratulate the Department of Empowered Person of the Disabilities of Thailand, Disabled People's International Korea, and transforming communities for inclusion.
Also, I want to thank the permanent Mission of Thailand and its representatives and as well the Ministry of Health and Welfare of Republic of Korea and as well International Disability Alliance that supports this initiative strongly.
This is a topic that's not revised enough.
Very often, it stays disregarded in major discussions in the areas of persons with disabilities.
But I think that your discussion here can definitely bring to better results and amelioration of the situation of persons with disabilities globally.
Now we are entering the third decade of the UN CRPD, and we can always reflect on the successes that we've made so far and we should.
However, we need to also be aware that there are remaining challenges that we yet have to address.
We need to promote autonomy, independency, and freedom of choice of persons with disabilities that still don't have those privileges.
Also, we need to ensure that persons with disabilities are the creators and authors of their own lives, and those are big steps that still have to be done.
We need to also reflect and admit that UNCRPD did make significant changes in changing the perception on disability on inclusion and participation of persons with disabilities.
But not all persons with disabilities have their promises fulfilled from the UNCRPD, especially underrepresented and marginalized groups, such as women and girls with disabilities, indigenous persons, also persons of groups of disability that are underrepresented even within the disability movement itself.
We can also see that there is still barriers that we need to overcome, violence, sexual and reproductive health dangers that women's and girls and marginalized groups of persons with disabilities continually face.
We need to be united in tackling these barriers.
We might not always be honest with ourselves as well because within the disability movements, we don't take all voices of persons with disabilities in regard.
That's why we need to keep on working that this global disability movement significantly represents diverse voices of persons with disabilities and that really all voices are heard and taken into consideration.
We shouldn't go into the third decade of UN CRPD without taking this accountability and trying to find ways how to remain still persistent and really not leave anyone behind.
We need to include all persons with disabilities.
We all have to be heard.
We want to make the world better place for everyone.
It's not about making everyone equal.
It's about overcoming these great inequalities that still exist.
That's why I invite you to start thinking about this and to join us in the global disability movement so that when we enter the third decade of UNCRPD, we have much more successes to show.
Thank you.
Thank you very much, doctor Tharsi.
Allow me to give you a short moment of saying thank you in sign language because she's a deaf blind, so please use your palm up to your shin and then you pull it out a little bit.
This is the word thank you in American sign language.
So please do it to doctor Sani.
Thank you.
Thank you so much, everybody.
Now let's move to our next speaker.
May I now invite miss Yu in Ha, Chair of Korean Women with Disability Association to deliver her congratulatory remarks in Korean.
However, I will have my colleagues, miss On Zong Kim from Disable People International, Korea translate in English.
Please have the floor.
Changan, Yuan, Changi, Coan rabon, Kaku Changi Tontug, ukcha Changi.
Hang, Changi, Yang Kucha in mean Kanga ban.
Coalin Tanja, Changi, Tangs banana.
Excellent Distinguished representative of the Dion of Thailand to the United Stateations, the Department of Intelligence, Persons with Disabilities of Thailand, and Ministry of Health and Welfare of Republic of Korea, and International Disability Alliance, DPI Korea and Distinguished colleagues from civil society and the international community, and most importantly, person with Dability from around the world.
Hang It is a great honor to join you today as a co chair of Korea Women with Disability Association and as a women who has worked alongside with women with disability in advancing our rights and dignity.
Ven Change, Egyptian and Hamida, Chin, Change, Kalama Wasmida.
This year marks the 20th anniversary of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities.
Over the past 20 years, the world has made the important progress in recognizing disability, not as an individual problem, but as a human rights issue.
Yuen, Changi, Kalyan, Maanga Kaag, San Naga Emida, Tang agua, Chang, suga, Chang, S yoga, Tjugbesan in Chago Bu in Gangwa Kang Kaag, Tonga Hangmo, Yongganon Chin meat, Kan Kanga, Bugs, Boden Chk Chan Ngute Eastmda.
As Article 6 of the CRPD clearly recognized that women and girls with disabilities face multiple and intersection forms of discrimination, it also calls on state parties to take all appropriate measures to ensure that women and girls with disabilities can fully and equally enjoy all human rights and fundamental freedom.
Each one tang to is Hamida, I, Chana Chinaman island, Kuja chicken mag Changi island, your journey, yoyon, Cogan, Tubm Buna, Chong Chi Chan Bua ira, Chai, Bachng Island, al Cg Imida.
This is not simply a statement of protection.
It is a commitment to address the inequalities that arise where disability and gender intersects.
Yet the reality remains challenging.
Women with disability continues to face barriers in education, employment, healthcare, care service, cultural, political participation, and even in making decisions about their own bodies and lives.
Gang Kunde Amida, Kuang job Tamo Pujanj leadership, Tanga Amida.
Deviation and Chang Chang, duo, Kucha ana, Tanganga Kukaba nga, Tanga, Kuang leadership.
Women with disability must not be seen only as recipients of support.
We must be recognized as right holders, leaders, and partners in designing policies and creating chances.
As we look to the future of the global Disability Rights agenda, we must move towards a new stage, one that ensures meaningful participation, strengthen the leadership of women with disability, and address intersecting discrimination.
To achieve this, we need better data that reflects the experience of women with disability from an intersectional perspectives, including gender, disability, age, and other factors.
We need stronger coordination between disability policies and gender equality policies.
Most importantly, women with disability and our organization must have a real voice in international decision making process and policy development.
Chang and Pug Pamida, Kaag, an Changan, product, any Kucha Sowa bamida.
Distinguished guests and colleagues, true inclusion does not begin when someone is invited into the room.
It begins when everyone has the opportunity to help shape decisions from the very beginning.
I hope today's discussions intervention will strengthen our shared commitment to protect the rights of women with disabilities and other marginalized groups and help us to build more inclusive future together.
Hang Women with disability from Korea will continue to stand in solidarity with the international community and raise our voice until no one is left behind.
Thank you very much.
Thank you.
Thank you very much and thank you very much for all distinguished delegates for your insightful and meaningful remarks.
Now, we will be hearing from around the background challenges, implementation and advancements about disability development in marginalized groups from both government or public sectors and OPDs and also we have the person with disabilities who are in the marginalized groups representing here in the room.
So please join me in thanking everybody for their opening remarks.
Before we move to the next session, I would like to have maybe 15 second to rearrange the seating so that everybody will be able to hear from other distinguished speakers.
Thank you.
All right.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
All right.
Welcome back to the session of upholding the rights of marginalized group of person with disabilities, including women with disabilities, underrepresented groups, and intersectional identities.
When we talk about people in marginalized group or people in different identities or intersectionalities, we may think about the one who is left behind, but this one will be double left behind.
Today we'll be able to hear from them.
We'll be able to interact with them and see how, difficulties they face in everyday life and how they overcome these challenges.
Now, I have the representative from the Thai government, miss Ap Ratanapitk, Director of Rights Protection Division, under the Department of Empowerment of Person with Disabilities, Ministry of Social Development and Human Security of Thailand, miss App, she has the extensive experiences in policy implementation, community based social protection, and inclusive social services.
She has played an important role in strengthening Thailand's disability welfare and protection system.
Her work focuses on promoting equal access to social protection, improving the quality of life of persons with disabilities, ensuring that disability inclusive policies are translated into practice.
And services both national and local levels.
Without any further ado, please join me in welcoming miss apa Ratanapita undistinguished representative excellency, despite important progress in disability inclusion globally.
Many persons with disabilities continue to face barrier in exercising their right and participating equally in society.
Female and girl with disabilities, underrepresented group, and person with intersecting identities often experience multiple and compounded forms of discrimination related to gender disability, poverty, ethnicity, geographic isolation, and unequal access to education.
Healthcare, employment and public services.
Women and girls with disabilities, also re at particularly high risk of violence, abuse, neckli, exploitation, and exclusion.
Violence against persons with disabilities is often hidden and under reported due to stigma, inaccessible services, communication barrier, and limited access to justice and protection system.
Thailand believed that addressing these challenges requires system that are accessible, inclusive, gender responsive, community based, and grounded in human rights.
As a state party to the Convention on the right of persons with disabilities, Thailand remain committed to advancing disability inclusion through an inclusive and rights based approach that respond to the diverse reality and experience of persons with disability.
In Thailand, the Ministry of Social Development and Human Security serve as the lead agency on social Protection and Vulnerable G.
Under the Ministry, the Department of Empowerment of Persons with Disabilities play a role in promoting and protecting the rights of persons with disabilities.
Thailand has focused on three key areas.
First, strengthening law, policy, and protection mechanism in line with the CRPD.
Thailand continue to implement the empowerment of Persons with Disability Act and the National P on the quality of life Development of persons with disabilities.
Thailand also utilized the empowerment of Persons with Disability Fund to support livelihood, assistive technologies, independent living, accessibility, and initiative promoting the right and dignity of persons with disabilities, especially female and girls with disabilities.
Thailand has also developed accessible support system, including the 1300 hotline, which provides 24 hour emergency support, literal and social protection services.
According to fiscal year 2025 statistics, more than 3,800 violence related cases were reported through the hotline, including case involved persons with disabilities, most of whom were women.
This figure highlights the urgent need for protection system that are disability inclusive and gender less pc.
Second, Thailand has strengthened community based support system and local protection mechanism.
Thailand has established 77 provincial Disability Service Center nationwide to connect persons with disability with welfare services.
Rehabilitation, legal assistance, and social protection mechanism.
These services are supported by multidisciplinary team, including social worker, psychologists, sign language interpreter, healthcare personnel, and disability specialists working together to ensure access to protection and recovery with dignity.
Thailand also promote independent living and community inclusion for persons with psychosocial disabilities through initiatives such as the foster family program, which support family and community based care and inclusion.
The Thailand recognized the importance of partnership and international cooperation.
Thailand continue to strengthen collaboration with the United Nations, regional partner, Civil Society Organization, and Organization of Persons with Disabilities.
At the regional level, Thailand advanced with disability inclusion ally with the Jakarta Declaration on the Asian Pacific Decade of Persons with Disabilities, and Aseian and bring Master Plan.
At the same time, Tyler recognized that important gap and inequality still remain, especially for women with disabilities, persons with disability from marginalized group.
Migrant worker with disabilities and persons with disability living in poverty or remote area.
Thailand therefore remain committed to continuously improving system that are inclusive, accessible, gender responsive, and community based.
Because truly leave no one behind in ensuring that no ice is overlooked, no person is explored, and no life is considered less vulnerable than another.
Thank you.
All right.
Thank you very much for your contribution.
From her speech, we can see the strong commitment and how Thailand is strengthening disability inclusion through laws, policies, community based support, and also the accessible Protection.
Now, apart from the public sector or government side, I also have the representative from the OPDs of Thailand will be representing and sharing some insights for the advancement of disability inclusion and development.
So please join me in welcoming Mr.
Egon Penan.
So he is currently the President of Association of the Blind in Thailand, and he is also a hosting the Vice President of the Disability Thailand and the strong advocate for Rights and Empowerment of persons with disabilities, particularly for person with visual impairments.
Within the disability community, he has played very crucial roles in the leadership for more than two decades.
He previously served as the President of the Thai Blind Graduate Association, advisor to the President of the Association of the Blind in Thailand, and the member of Thailand's Fund for Empowerment and Development for Persons with Disabilities.
Oh, so many roles and he is also a president of the Association of the Blind, and he promotes a lot of equal rights accessibilities, inclusive education, employment opportunity and his work contributes significantly to strengthening disability inclusion and advancement in implementation of CRPD.
Mr.
Eckermann, please have the floor.
Thank you, Distinguished Chair, Excellencies, ladies and gentlemen.
My name is Ekman Pat Yanan.
Thank you for the opportunity to speak on behalf of the disability Thailand or the DTH.
Established in 1983, the DTH has long served as a national level organization advocating of the rights of persons with disability in Thailand.
DTH serves as an umbrella organization representing organizations of persons with disabilities across the country.
We have worked closely with government agencies, parliamentarian, civil society and international partners to advocate disability inclusive law and policies.
Today, I would like to focus on the role of civil society and OPDs in monitoring CRPD implementation and in shaping good practices and policy approaches to promote and protect the rights of marginalized groups of persons with disabilities, including women with disabilities, underrepresented groups, and persons with intersectional identities.
First, the DTH and the Department of Empowerment of Persons with Disability DEP are working together to support a new draft amendment to the disability law.
A key proposal is to strengthen the mechanism and eliminating unfair discrimination against persons with disabilities by upgrading into stronger committee with clearer procedure, more resources, expert support, and improved remedies.
Including mediation, temporary protection, compensation, and enforcement.
This matters because rights must be backed by accessible remedies, especially for persons facing multiple and intersecting forms of discrimination.
We also believe The draft should go further by making intersectional discrimination more explicit and by strengthening the promotion and protection of women with disabilities in line with the CRPD Article 6.
Second, Thailand also has a specific women with disability development plan which focuses on equal access to rights, health, and sexual and reproductive rights.
Freedom from violence is an exploitation.
The strengthening of women led disability organizations.
This is an important example of disability policy responding to general live realities in an integrated way.
Third, Thailand law already recognized that persons with disability who have no sea will registration status may receive suitable assistance from the state under the principle of dignity.
This is especially important for stateless persons, migrants, and other excluded formal system.
Four, Thailand has introduced a new pathway on social disability assessment for too long, access to the disability identification card mainly rely on medical assessment.
This new pathway would help include some persons facing barrier but do not match the strict medical assessment to receive disability rights.
Excellency colleagues.
The CSOs and DPOs in Thailand stand out in the implementation of the policies.
We have transformed the commitments into responsive law, practical policies, and community based practices.
Let us work together to ensure that no one is invisible, no voice is unheard and no one is left behind.
Thank you very much.
Thank you very much, Mr.
A Gammon, the representative from the OPDs of Thailand.
We can see another perspective of how OPDs in Thailand seeing or upholding the rights of people in marginalized group of persons with disabilities.
Now, let me invite miss On Zong Kim.
Team manager of International Relations at Disabled People International Korea.
She has been working on the International disability rights advocacy, focusing on implementation of CRPD, community living, and deinstitutionalization, women's rights and international cooperation among OPDs.
Please, miss On an Kim, the floor is your.
Hello.
My name is an Kim and I am a women activist and also I'm International Relations Manager of Disabled People's International Career.
At the outset, I would like to express my sincere appreciation to the permanent mission of Thailand the United Nations and our valued partner, the Department of Empowerment of Persons with Disability of Thailand, for their support and sponsor for collaborating in organizing this important event, Coca.
Thank you very much.
Also, the International Disability Alliance and the Ministry of Health and Welfare of the Republic of Korea for sponsoring this meaningful side event.
This year marks the 20 year anniversary of the adoption of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities.
Ten years ago, the international community embarked on a historical transformation by recognizing the person with disability not as object of charity or protection, but as holder of rights.
The CRPD presents a new vision based on dignity, equality, anatomy, and the full participation in society.
However, we are not gathered here today merely to celebrate the achievement of past two decades.
I think we must ask ourselves an important question.
All persons with disability equally enjoying the rights promised by the CRPD? Unfortunately, I think the answer is still no.
The women with disability and person with psychosocial disability, person with intellectual disability, and all those living in institutions continue to experience the intersecting forms of discrimination and exclusion.
Disability is never a single experience.
Disability intersects with gender, age, poverty, geographic location, race, migration status and socioeconomic circumstances, creating diverse form of exclusion.
Therefore, when discussing disability policy, we must look beyond disability alone.
We must examine the reality faced by those who experience the greatest marginalization through the lens of intersectionality.
Today, drawing upon the experience of Republic of Korea, I would like to highlight the rights of women with disability and person with psychosocial disability as a recent legislative development in Korea.
First, I would like to address the rights of women with disabilities.
Women with disability are status as an intersection of both gender based and disability based discrimination.
In Korea, many women with disability continues to face poverty, unemployment, social isolation, limited access to information, and highlighted the risk of gender based violence and domestic abuse.
Even when they experience the violence, many are unable to access appropriate support due to the lack of accessible counseling services, legal assistance, and protection mechanism.
Moreover, there are often overlooked in disability policies because they are women and excluded from women policies because they are a person with disabilities.
This demonstrates the right recognized under the Article 0F CRPD and have not been fully realized.
However, women with disability are not merely recipients of protection.
They are the right holders and agents of changes.
A truly inclusive society can only be achieved when the leadership and meaningful participants of women with disability in decision making process are fully guaranteed.
I would now like to address the rights of person with psychosocial disabilities.
For many years, Korea maintained the support system centered on hospitals residents, institutions.
As a result, many people with psychosocial disability were denied opportunities to exercise the choice of self determination in their own lives.
Even today, person with psychosocial disability continue to experience a significant prejudice and discrimination in employment, education, housing, and community participation.
Yet the CRP clearue affirms that all the persons with disability have right to equal recognition before the law and the rights to make decisions about their own lives.
We must view the person with psychosocial disability not as object of protection, but as a right holder.
We must also strengthen the policy that promotes support decision making, independent living, and full participation in community of the life.
The Republic of Korea has recently achieved the important legislative progress in advancing the rights of persons with disability.
In 2025, National Assembly enact the Framework Act on the rights of persons with disability.
This legislation recognized person with disability as a right holder rather than beneficial of welfare and establish a comprehensive legal framework addressing dignity, equality, and independent living, social participation, and non discrimination is state responsibility.
Represents an important milestone in integrating the value and principle of the CRP more systematically into Korea domestic legal system.
Real change begins only when the law transform peoples everyday lives.
Deinstitutionalization is not simply about leaving the institutions.
It requires access to established housing, adequate person assistance service, accessible healthcare and education, and quality, employment opportunities, environment that supports meaningful relationship and community participants.
Women with disability and person with psychosocial disability may be particularly vulnerable to violence, poverty, and social isolation during this transition.
Therefore, the policy grounded in an intersection approach are essential.
As we commentorate the 20 year anniversary on the CRP, we must reaffirm the global commitment to leave no one behind to Distinguished colleagues, inclusion is not just charity, participation is not optional.
We must work together to build the world where the women with disability can live free from violence, where a person with psychosocial disability have their own anatomy and self determination, respect, where all persons with disability can live with dignity in their communities where no one is left behind.
Thank you very much.
Thank you very much, miss Jong Kim, for addressing the challenges or things that person with disabilities, especially women with disabilities and women with psychosocial with disabilities have faced these day according to their intersectionality and also their identities.
Thank you very much.
Now let's move to another speaker.
Miss Mara, Christina Gabriel.
She is a Brazilian senator, psychologist, publicist, human rights advocate, and UN elected expert.
After a car accident in 1994, she founded the Instituto Mara Gabriel.
She has dedicated her career to advancing accessibility, inclusion, health, and disability rights in Brazil and around the world.
She is now currently serving in the Brazilian Federation Senate and on the UNCRPD Committee.
Let's hear from her.
Please welcome miss Mara.
Thank you very much.
Distinguished organizers, excellencies, dear colleagues, friends, representatives of organizations of persons with disabilities and members of civil society.
It is a great honor to be here today for this very important side event.
I would like to warmly thank the Department of Empowerment of Persons with Disabilities of Thailand and Disabled People's International Korea.
The permanent mission of Thailand to the United Nations, the Ministry of Health and Welfare of the Republic of Korea, the International Disability Alliance, and all partners involved in organizing this dialogue.
This side event could not be more timely.
After 20 years of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, we must ask ourselves, who is still being left behind? First point I would like to highlight is intersectional discrimination.
For the CRPT Committee, this is the very heart of our current work.
We are now advancing important initiatives to strengthen the rights of those who are most often marginalized.
The working group on women and girls with disabilities, which I had the honor of serving as a vice chair, we are currently finalizing guidelines on intersectional discrimination against women and girls with disabilities.
We received more than 150 contributions from women and girls with disabilities from all over the world.
This remind us that discrimination is rarely experienced in only one dimension.
A woman with a disability may also be poor, black, indigenous, migrant, rare, displaced, or belong to another marginalized group.
Her exclusion is the result of many barriers operating together.
And these barriers are not accidental, they are structural, systemic, and deeply rooted in patriarchal norms, Eboism, racism, colonial legacies, and other forms of oppression.
To recognize intersectionality is not to complicate the human rights agenda.
It is to make it honest.
The second point is gender based violence and protection mechanisms.
Women and girls with disabilities are often at the greater risk of violence, abuse, neglected, and sexual exploitation.
This risk becomes more serious when disability intersects with poverty, migration status, age, race, ethnicity, or psychosocial and intellectual disabilities.
Let me be clear.
Violence is not only a private act committed behind closed doors.
It may be present in families, schools, health services, psychiatric systems, and places of deprivation of liberty.
In many cases, eboist assumptions about incapacity and vulnerability are combined with the stereotypes about women's sexuality, dependency, submissiveness, or credibility.
This makes violence easier to commit and harder to denounce.
For a woman with psychosocial and intellectual disabilities, psychiatric labels are often used to discredit their testimonies, justify control, deny the autonomy of their bodies, or keep abuse invisible.
This is why my colleagues in the CRPD are also working on guidelines related to violence against persons with disabilities, including gender based violence.
Thank you, Amalia, for being here.
She's from the CRPD, working in this field.
We must be very clear.
Protection cannot mean control, Protection cannot mean confinement.
Protection cannot mean replacing the will of women and girls with disabilities, with the decisions of others.
Real protection means freedom from violence, access to justice, and the right to live in community with autonomy.
My third point concerns inclusive policy frameworks and human rights protections.
States parties have a decisive role to play.
Intersectional discrimination does not disappear through good maintenances.
It requires laws, budgets, institutions, data prevention, monitoring, and accountability.
States must adopt comprehensive preventive strategies to identify and eliminate discriminatory laws, policies, and segregated systems.
The states must also create intersectional data system, data matters because what is not counted is often not seen and what is not seen is rarely prioritized.
We cannot talk about policy measures without the active and inclusive participation of persons with disabilities.
So that the lead us to my fourth point, participation and leadership.
We are living in a challenging global context.
Women with disability and from underrepresented groups are more affected by the context because they are ready faces structural barriers to participation and leadership.
In this moment, I must insist women with disabilities are not beneficiaries of policies.
We are political subjects, right holders, experts, and leaders.
This participation cannot be symbolic.
It means decision making leadership and influence over budgets, laws, and implementation.
States parties must ensure sustainable funding for organizations, groups, and networks with networks led by women with disabilities in all their diversity.
We need accessible electoral systems, leadership training, partnerships and stronger bridge between disability rights movements and women's rights movements.
The slogan, nothing about us without us also mean nothing about women without a disability without women with disabilities.
Allow me to share an example from my own country, Brazil.
I had the honor of serving as a per and author of the final text of the Brazilian Inclusion Law.
One of the most remarkable aspects of the process was the active participation of the civil society.
Through an online platform, organizations and individuals with disabilities from across Brazil were able to review the text and submit suggestions directly to parliament.
Accessibility was also a priority.
For the first time in Brazil, a parliamentary channel made the discussion of a bill fully accessible to deaf citizens and persons with visual impairments with assistive technologies and full interpretation into Brazilian sign language.
Law introduced the important innovations.
It expanded access to rights such as education, health care, work, accessibility, and participation.
Of course, as in many countries, implementation remains an ongoing challenge.
But this process showed us something very important.
Inclusive parliaments are not only about who occupies a seat.
They are about how laws are made.
Who is heard, whose knowledge counts, and whether democratic institutions are accessible to everyone.
When persons with disabilities participate fully in political life, democracy itself becomes stronger.
My fifth and final point is international cooperation and knowledge sharing.
I have a special appreciation for Article 32 of the Convention and because it is the first time that a United Nations Human Rights treaty decided to dedicate one exclusive article to international cooperation.
This is powerful.
It means that disability inclusion is not only a domestic obligation.
Is also a global responsibility.
International cooperation must not reproduce exclusion.
It must not export policies without listening to communities.
It must not treat persons with disability as passive recipients of development.
Article 32 tells us that persons with disabilities must be included in all international development and cooperation initiatives.
This means bringing people's voices, experience, and lessons learned into the center of cooperation.
Foreign aid policy cannot be separated from social participation.
Development cannot be inclusive if the people most affected are not present in its design.
Spaces like this side event remind us that the challenges we face are global, but so are the solutions we can build together.
Dear friends, as we celebrate the 20 years of the convention, we must remember that the CRPD was never meant to be simply a legal instrument.
It is a roadmap for building societies where every person can participate fully and equally.
But a roadmap only matters if we are brave enough to correct the root when people are still being left behind.
For me, the question before us is not only whether states have adopted laws.
The question is whether a girl with disability can grow up free from violence, whether a woman with a psychosocial disability is believed in when she speaks, whether an indigenous woman with a disability has access to justice in her own language and community, whether a migrant woman with a disability can receive support without fear.
Whether a woman in an institution can return to the community, whether girls with disability can dream steady, lead love work, decide and have their full sexual and reproductive rights, and participate in public life with dignity.
This is the foundation of the convention, and this is the responsibility we share.
The future of disability rights will only be strong if it is inclusive, accessible, and guided by the voices of persons with disability and all their diversities.
Kamm da, Hapkula.
Thank you very much.
Thank you very much, Grass.
Thank you very much, miss Mara, Christina Gabriel, for your insights and we can see a true dedication that she has been doing to advancing the rights and dignity and inclusion of persons with disabilities, especially women and people with psychosocial disabilities.
Thank you very much once again.
Now let's move to another speaker, miss Isha Sharma Mori.
She is a Director of advocacy and research at the Transforming Communities for inclusion.
She is a research and a researcher and disability rights advocate with over 12 years of experience across India and global spaces.
Currently, she is a director of the advocacy and research at the TCI Global and identifies as a woman with psychosocial disabilities.
In her role, she works closely with the grassroots OPDs and has led and contributed to research, advocacy, campaigns, and documentary efforts across TCI member countries in Asia, Asia Pacific, Africa, Europe.
Please have the floor.
Good morning, everyone, and we see a lot of colleagues and friends from Thailand, Sadika.
My name is Rchasharm Tamuka and I am the Director of advocacy and Research at Transforming communities for inclusion or TCI Global.
Thank you to the organizers for having us here and my fellow panelists and for participants who have come to this room on the very last day of a very exhausting cost.
So thank you all so much for attending this one.
Um, as the moderator shared, I identify as a woman with psychosocial disability and our group continues to be an underrepresented and historically oppressed group even now.
My organization is a post CRPD inclusion movement and a membership based organization led completely by persons with psychosocial disabilities.
We have around 28 members from 21 countries across the globe, and we are guided by the extraordinary vision of the CRPD.
It gives me immense pleasure to be part of this session marking 20 years of this glorious convention.
In these 20 years, the CRPD has given our movement a language that many of us did not have before and that many of our senior leaders here and gone fought for.
It has enabled women with psychosocial disabilities to say clearly that we are right holders, not objects of pity or care.
It has strengthened OPD leadership, it has opened spaces for cross disability solidarity and given us tools to challenge forced institutionalization, forced treatments, coercive and violent systems, and that progress matters very much to us.
But the promise of the CRPD remains unevenly realized, especially for those living at the intersections of different identities, as we've been hearing in other presentations.
This reflection is also taking place at a time when anti rights narratives are gaining ground in many regions, often using the language of honor, culture, family, sovereignty, or care.
To weaken gender justice, bodily autonomy, and accountability for violations and violence.
For women with psychosocial disabilities, this is deeply concerning because these same words have too often been used to justify confinement, forced practices, control, and the silencing of our testimony.
We are glad this discussion strongly renews the focus on intersectionality, because in our experience, it remains more of a policy concept than being practiced in real life.
We are often asked to prioritize one identity over the other.
I can either be a woman, I can be a woman with psychosocial disability, I can be an indigenous person or a migrant.
We are just asked to choose one identity, but we are all these identities at any given moment or point in our lives.
If intersectionality is to mean anything in practice, it must change who's seen, who's believed, who's funded, who's supported, and who is invited to lead.
Women with psychosocial disabilities are too often pushed to the margins by states services, and even social justice movements.
But we are building bridges because transforming systems of violations and exclusion cannot and should not be done in silos.
One of the most persistent violations we face is the denial of legal capacity.
The moment we receive a diagnosis or a label, we are too often treated as non persons in the eyes of the law and in the eyes of our communities.
Others are allowed to speak over us and for us while our own will and preferences are ignored constantly.
These denials are often codified in mental health laws, in constitutions and policies that continue to enable disability specific deprivation of liberty and other protectionist and paternalistic measures in the name of best interest.
They are part of a global pattern, as we also heard in one of our co panelists interventions, in which patriarchy, ableism, colonialism, medical model of disability, and psychiatric violence intersect to control our bodies, silence our voices, and deny our rights.
This denial affects every part of life.
It affects where we live, who we live with, whether we can marry, whether we can fall in love or have children, whether we can access justice, participate in public life, or choose our own support on our own terms.
It also shapes how violence is seen against us.
Too often our testimonies are not believed.
We are treated as unreliable narrators of our own experiences.
Our choices are questioned and our pain is treated as a symptom rather than an evidence of rights violation.
Agreeing with my co panelists on this, that this is why we must also rethink about what protection means because protection is a very heavy loaded word for our constituency.
For women with psychosocial disabilities, protection cannot mean control over us.
It cannot mean segregation, confinement, or surveillance.
We need accessible justice, independent monitoring, survivor centered complaint mechanisms, supported decision making, peer led support during crisis situations, safe housing and accountability and reparations for discrimination committed by families, institutions, service providers, and the state.
Even after 20 years of the CRPD, we can still be institutionalized at any given time in our lives in hospitals or group homes or nursing facilities, and even in our own homes.
Institutions in any shape, size, or form are in direct contradiction to the CRPD and can never be homes or residence for us.
When women are rendered invisible through the practice of institutionalization, violence against us becomes easier to ignore, deny, and normalize.
The deeper problem here is that coercion has been treated as a default for so many centuries.
For us, freedom is now being treated as an experiment.
Institutions, guardianship, substituted decision making are presented as regular systems while peer support, supported decision making, community based community based crisis support systems, and community inclusion are asked to prove themselves again and again.
There's a need to reverse this logic.
The burden should not be on us to keep proving that freedom works for us or for anybody for that matter.
The responsibility should be on the states to justify why systems that keep producing violence, disappearance, exclusion, and even death continue to receive legal protection and sustained public funding.
And we know that another way is possible because our OPDs are already building it with immensely limited resources.
Across our movement, persons with psychosocial disabilities are documenting rights violations, supporting survivors to claim legal capacity and access justice, build capacity through peer learning, strengthening peer and community support to step in when rights violations occur, developing tools to check and monitor for CRPD compliance of their own models, and creating responses rooted in dignity, choice, and autonomy so that crisis is no longer used as a justification for taking away our freedom.
These are not just abstract alternatives, but these are practical expressions of the CRPD itself because it's being led by those most affected.
That's why OPDs must not be treated as occasional, consultees, checkbox participants, or service innovators alone.
We are knowledge producers, we are keepers of our movements histories, CRPD monitors, builders of rights based responses, and accountability actors.
Therefore, our participation must be resourced, sustained, and treated as central to accountability.
As we reflect on these 20 years of the CRPD, our priorities for the future somewhat remain the same that they have in the last 20 years, but have become more clearer.
First, the states must repeal all laws that allow for disability specific deprivation of liberty and deny legal capacity to persons with psychosocial disabilities.
Second, states must invest in time bound institutionalization plans and also fund community and OPD led models that promote supported decision making and access to mainstream services so that persons with disabilities can live with dignity in the community.
Third, access to justice must be made real for women and girls with psychosocial disabilities who experience discrimination and institutional harm.
Fourth, women with psychosocial disabilities and our OPDes must be meaningfully included and funded, especially led by women and girls, global South led and grassroots organization.
Fifth, because here we are joined by multiple stakeholders, so we talking about international cooperation must support the full implementation of the CRPD by centering OPD leadership, enabling cross country learning, and strengthening gender responsive community based supports.
The CRPD did not ask the world to create smaller institutions, softer coercion, or more polite forms of control.
It asked for a transformation of communities itself.
We are not asking to be included at the margins of systems that continue to harm us.
We are asking for those systems to be abolished and dismantled and for laws, policies, budgets, and services to be grounded in inherent dignity, autonomy, interdependence, equality, and accountability, the very principles of the CRPD, not in another 20 years, but now.
Thank you.
Thank you very much, miss Resha, for your insightful remarks and also the example that we can share and learn apart from the things that we have been speaking.
Next, I Allow me to invite miss Jacqueline Cruz Aquila.
She is a disability rights advocate and youth leader committed to advancing the meaningful participation of young person with disabilities in International Human Rights process.
She is actively engaged with the International movement of youth with disabilities and works to promote inclusive policies, intersectional representation, and youth leadership within the Disability Rights Movement.
Please welcome miss Jacqueline.
So much.
I would like to begin with a powerful truth from all learn.
There is no such a thing as a single issue struggle because we don't live single issue lives.
I think it reflects about intersectionality and how it's important to talk about gender and youth perspective for disability rights.
Because when we speak about women with disabilities, especially young women with disabilities, we are not speaking about a homogeneous group.
Women rights sadly change depending on the country, the culture, and the religion.
But despite that, also change across age, socioeconomic status, sexual orientation, gender identity, and of course, disability.
Sometimes these layers means it's a complex issues, but these layers made.
Because when we apply an intersectional lens, it's important to see as a whole thing for this identity, no s the different characteristic of woman with disability.
For young woman with disabilities, access to education, employment, and civic participation is significantly more limited.
But at the same time, they face high exposure to gender based violence, reduced access to justice and systematic exclusion from public space.
So what does it mean to speak of rights when women are still denied the possibility of living freedom free from violence? Global data shows that women with disabilities are two to three times more likely to experience violence than women without disabilities.
But beyond these numbers, the violence translate into isolation, silence, and impunity.
I have heard stories of Jung women who are not belief when they report sexual abuse.
I have heard stories of June women who cannot access shelters because they are not accessible, even when they need it because gender based violence.
I have hear stories of Jung women who are told to endure violence because they needed to be there because they don't have financial resources, independence, and even the system seen Jung woman with disabilities as a dependent of others.
Women with disabilities face violence in their homes, institutions, in their communities, even in the disabled community.
This system, that are meant to protect them, not for discrimination.
The barriers to reporting violence sometimes is based in the one truth that their bosses is not important, is not trust boices.
When we seek justice as a doom person, we face inaccessible system, prejudices, and also impunity.
Secondly, I want to talk about how young woman with disabilities face a lack of opportunities when housework and care work depend on them.
This unpaid work is invisible and is normalized like woman with psychosocial and intellectual disabilities stay at home for care others or just be late for the housework.
For me, it's important to name those women that are not here in this room today because it's not because their voices matter less, it's because the structural barriers keep them out.
Also, I wanted to recognize all the women that are here.
But They are still carrying responsibilities from home.
Women who are caregivers who are thinking about those they support even while participating in this space because as a young woman and also a caregiver in my home, I'm present here, but my mind and my heart is still in my home, wondering about what is happening from people, they need my caregiver.
I really want to recognize this woman.
Yeah.
Finally, and to close my participation, I would like to also share the words of Maya Angelou because I believe the woman words is so powerful.
Each time a woman stand up for herself without knowing it's possible, without claim it, She stands not for just herself.
She stands for all woman.
I invite you all to build the spaces where girls, adolescents and young woman with disability, can share their voices and not just share.
You need to legitimateize and also value these voices because we need to change the system.
We need to share the power because today our voices are here and I hear it.
But what happened with girls, adolescents, and women, there are caregivers that are not here.
So please share your power everyday interactions with the youngers.
Thank you so much.
Thank you very much, miss Jacqueline.
Due to running out of time, further discussion are welcome after the session.
I would like to take this opportunity to thank you once again to our speakers, participants, and a very special thanks to Disabled people, International Korea, Korean Foundation for Persons with Disabilities and Organizations of Persons with Disabilities, and Republic of Korea for organizing this most important site event.
Let us not speak about inclusion, but make it a lived reality for all.
Thank you very much.