CRPD and Refugee Rights: Have Parties fulfilled their obligations to ensure protection and safety for displaced persons with disabilities? (COSP19 Side Event)

All right.
Good evening everyone.
Thank you so much for joining us this evening.
I know that we all have busy days during the conference and making the time and effort to join a very last side events at 4:45, basically 5:00 P.M.
Needs a lot of dedication.
I appreciate your dedication to this topic and I promise it's going to be a very, very fruitful, thought invooking and future looking event.
My name is Elm sefian.
I work with the International Refugee Assistance Project as the Director of Disability Inclusion and Accessibility, and I'm going to be moderating this event today.
This event is looking into the intersection of CRPD and refugee rights.
And we are asking 20 years after the adoption of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities and on the 75th anniversary of the UN Refugee Convention, where are we in fulfilling refugee rights? Have we really realized the potential of the CRPD in ensuring protection and safety of the rights of refugees and forcibly displaced people with disabilities? I want to start by huge thanks to the mission of Kenya who has been taking the lead by organizing and hosting us today.
It's just another reason to believe that the government of Kenya is one of the most refugee friendly countries around the world, and of course, one of the most disability and disability rights friendly countries.
Huge thanks to Kenyans, government of Kenya and Mission of Kenya in New York.
I also want to thank our other sponsors for the event.
Mission of Finland, who has been a super historic ally of the civility movement and refugee rights have been always ally for us.
Thank you.
Mission of Armenia, who has offered their support to this event and now have a new candidate, not candidate anymore, a new member on the CRPD committee.
We're going to hear more and more from the Armenian colleagues.
We also have my organization, the International Refugee Assistance Project, which is an NGO working on access to safety and Protection for refugees.
We have the global network of refugees with disabilities who are a recently started group of refugees with disabilities and their representative organizations.
Unfortunately, their representative couldn't be with us today due to some health emergency, but hopefully they are here watching us online.
I forgot to say hi to anyone who is hopefully watching us on UN TV.
Thank you so much for following us.
Then of course, we also have the European Disability Forum, a dedicated Organization of People with Disabilities in Europe, and the United Disabled Persons of Kenya, the National Organizations of People with Disabilities in Kenya, who are also sponsoring the event.
We have captioning available.
We all try to speak clearly and as slowly as our limited time allows, hoping that our captioners can follow us.
We are also trying to stick to time all of us so that we allow some time for questions and interventions from the floor.
With that being said, I want to start by inviting our first speaker, doctor Michael Mun Muni, to provide opening remarks.
Doctor Mounine is the Executive Director of the Kenya National Council of People with Disabilities.
Thank you so much for joining and floor is yours.
Thank you very much.
Excellencies, distinguished delegates, ladies and gentlemen.
Good evening.
Good evening.
I am doctor Michael Monene, Chief Executive Officer of National Council for Persons with Disabilities from Kenya.
These are government agency that deals with matters disability.
I'm greatly honored to join you today and to welcome you to this important side event on the rights of refugees with disabilities under the Conventions on the rights of Persons with Disabilities.
As we gather today, the world is witnessing unprecedented levels of displacement.
More than 117 million people have been forcibly displaced by conflict, persecution, climate related disasters and humanitarian crisis.
Among them are millions of persons with disabilities whose experiences often remain invisible within humanitarian responses and refugee protection systems.
For many displaced persons with disabilities, the journey from home to safety is marked not only by the challenges of displacement, but also by additional barriers to accessing information, registration processes, healthcare, education, livelihoods and protection services.
Maybe just to clarify on this, we have had very curious cases in Kenya, whereby especially for refugees from the Horn of Africa coming into Kenya, persons with disabilities.
Now for Kenya for you to be able to access benefits and services offered to persons with disabilities, you have to be registered as a person with disability, whether therapy services, whether assistive devices, whether medication, whether education, whether scholarship.
Now the challenge we have is if you are not registered, you cannot access the services.
That's why for us now this challenge of displacement becomes a big issue.
Not only displacement, even for cross border, especially for countries bordering the country, our country and persons with disabilities are spilling over seeking services.
You find they are not able to access these services.
Too often they are among the last to be identified, the last to be rich, and the first to be excluded.
Because again, you realize and you understand persons with disability for their mobility is a big challenge.
Even when interventions are being offered to them, they are the last to access these interventions because they are not mobile enough, especially for those with physical mobility challenges.
The conventions on the rights of persons with disabilities is clear.
Human rights do not stop at borders.
The protection guaranteed under the conventions apply equally to all persons with disabilities regardless of nationality, migration status or displacement status.
Article 11 specifically obligates third parties to ensure that protection and safety of persons with disabilities, and of risk, including armed conflict, humanitarian emergencies and natural disasters.
For Kenya, this discussion is particularly relevant.
Kenya has a long and proud tradition of providing refuge and protection to persons fleeing conflicts and crisis for a long time as one of Africa's largest refugee hosting countries, Kenya continues to offer sanctuary to hundreds of thousands of refugees, especially around the Horn of Africa.
Kakuma is one of the largest refugee camps in Africa and we continue attracting a lot of refugees from East Africa and the Horn of Africa.
While significant progress has been made in advancing disability rights through our Constitution of 2010, the Persons with Disabilities Act of 2025, and other policy frameworks, we recognize that more must be done to ensure the refugees with disabilities fully benefit from those protections.
The intersection between disability and displacement presents unique challenges that require deliberate policy attention, adequate resources, accessible services, and meaningful participation of those most affected.
It also requires us to strengthen collaboration.
Between disability institutions, refugee management agencies, humanitarian actors, and organization led by refugees and persons with disabilities.
Again, I'm happy we are having this conversation because in Africa, we have been having a lot of benchmarking among African countries.
Kenya is one of the countries with very advanced disability policy, acts, interventions, regulations, and all that.
I've been attracting a lot of visitors to come and benchmark on what is happening.
But again, one of the unique aspects of this collaboration is whereby each country has its own disability laws and policies and intervention.
Now harmonizing them becomes a challenge because you can't really synchronize what is happening among different countries.
This is one of the key areas that we keep saying we need to figure out how do we have more inclusive a synchronization of these interventions so that at the end of the day I'm a person with disability, whether they move from one country to another, I'm able to access the same rights or the same intervention that person with disabilities in those other countries are enjoying.
Today presents an opportunity to examine both our achievements and our gaps.
It's an opportunity to discuss how states can better collect disability disaggregated data, ensure accessible registration and protection systems, strengthen accountability under Article 11, and build humanitarian responses that are inclusive by design.
Rather than inclusive by exception.
Again, you all understand the whole conversation around disability has been around exception.
These are unique people.
How do we accommodate them? But we are saying we need to move away from that.
How can we be inclusive by design? By design, we are talking of human centered approach.
Can we involve the person with disabilities all the way from the very beginning, not as an afterthought.
Most importantly, is an opportunity to reaffirm a simple but powerful principle.
No person with a disability should be denied protection.
Dignity, safety, or opportunity because they have been displaced.
At the National Council for Persons with Disabilities, we remain committed to supporting efforts that every person with a disability in Kenya, including refugees, is able to enjoy their rights fully and equally.
I encourage all participants today to engage openly, share experiences, and identify practical solutions and actions that can move away from commitments to implementation.
Again, we talk a lot, we have best policies, we have best laws, but implementation becomes a problem.
This is where we require a lot of goodwill.
We also require a lot of accountability.
Because if you don't hold the institution responsible for this, then we have a problem.
We need to make sure they are accountable, either to the resources we are giving to them or to the mandate that we are pushing on them in making sure that persons with disabilities, especially refugees are included in all the intervention.
I thank you and I look forward to a fruitful discussion.
Thank you very much.
Great.
Thank you very much, doctor Muni.
Now I want to invite Mary Heyman.
I did not.
Who is the senior advisor with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Finland, correct? All of that is true.
To provide the second opening remarks for our event.
Thank you so much.
Excellencies, colleagues.
Great thanks to the government of Kenya, of course, in Armenia, as well as Iraq for all your work and thank you for having me today, but also all the previous collaborations that there has been between Finland and yourself also in terms of advancing rights of persons with disabilities in crisis and humanitarian programming.
I do want to thank you for the opportunity to contribute to this discussion on whether parties have fulfilled their obligations to ensure protection and safety for displaced persons with disabilities.
As mentioned already, yes, it is 20 years after the adoption of the CRPD, but also from a Finnish standpoint, it's been also ten years since it came into force in Finland.
Of course, as mentioned before, the Refugee Convention is also very relevant in addition to the CRPD.
I think the answer to the question at hand in all frankness, is that yes, maybe there is some progress, but a significant amount of work remains unfortunately.
Assylum systems, they are not certainly always inclusive, nor persons with disabilities often recognized as a particular social groups that maybe have a well founded fear of persecution, but rather more seen as being vulnerable groups.
In Finland, asylum system and reception systems are built on the premise that those in vulnerable situations, they must receive tailored support.
Our legislation requires authorities to actively assess whether an asylum seeker needs particular protection and needs particular procedural guarantees, including due to disability and to ensure that necessary support is provided throughout the process.
Importantly, though, I These procedures, they can't be applied if there is not adequate support that is ensured.
Similarly, in reception services, individual needs must be identified and addressed and reception conditions must be specifically designed to meet those needs.
Persons with disabilities, they are explicitly recognized as a group that is more likely to receive and require such support.
Of course, these commitments and they reflect a our understanding in some instances of the protection and safety needs there are, but it requires resources, of course, and legal guarantees alone are not sufficient for effective implementation.
Finland's asylum policy is grounded in prioritizing those with greatest needs.
Through our annual resettlement quota, there is an aim to provide protection to the most vulnerable, including persons with disabilities with additional flexibility for urgent and emergency cases.
Of course in addition to persons with disabilities are including in persons with disabilities, women and children are considered as well.
But as mentioned, it's quite typical that systems classify persons with disabilities as vulnerable applicants rather than persecuted social groups.
What that means is that it leads to procedural support, but weaker recognition of refugee claims and that has to be remembered.
And I'd say there's nevertheless, there is an understanding that displacement and disability they intersect to create heightened risks requiring targeted and proactive responses.
But ensuring protection, as was also mentioned by doctor Mona as well, of course, it sees these humanitarian context and crisis and hence is not simply the responsibility always of governments, but also of agencies and organizations, even if obviously governments are the final duty bearers, but there are other actors as well.
Finland has been actively advocating and emphasizing that if humanitarian assistance is going to be impartial, then it has to reach the people with the highest needs, and without discrimination.
Protection is a key element of humanitarian programming.
With that, all else fails.
It must be offered to those who have the highest needs.
But what does this require? It requires reasonable accommodations so that persons with disabilities can access assistance, but also be reached by it.
We've tried to advance this in different ways.
We certainly have been advocating for and promoting practical solutions on how to assess needs inclusively, deliver assistance effectively, We consistently raise this in different international fora with humanitarian actors, dialogue with humanitarian partners, and we certainly try to hold different parties to account.
We also recognize that with the current reduced funding, there is reducing capacities in a lot of humanitarian organizations and partly because of that, we are providing targeted earmarked funding to organizations such as UNHCR or NWFP for specifically disability programming or technical expertise.
I think my background as well as in humanitarian work before the ministry and I think it's, we can see it now.
We've always seen it inclusion is rarely there on the ground.
It's often deprioritized and certainly humanitarian budgets they're facing this pressure.
We may get commitments, but commitments doesn't always mean that they're fulfilled in reality, unfortunately.
Refugees with disabilities, they're very rarely impacting decision making, even about the services that they would receive.
They're not identified as doctor Mounni also mentioned, and when they are identified, they often face barriers, as well as clear exclusion, both from national systems and from humanitarian services as well.
Of course, we know that conflict exacerbates only the pre existing discrimination that's already been there.
We call for OPDs and persons with disabilities as well to be in the center of designing and delivering assistance, as well as their engagement also in evaluation, monitoring feedback processes and OPD and OPDs led by refugees themselves, they are essential, of course, to making this a reality, but this would require shifting power as well.
We must also remember that protection offered by humanitarian programming generally only provides immediate support, and lasting protection and safety comes from inclusion in society.
This means integrating refugees with disabilities into national systems, supporting recovery and reconstruction and ensuring access to services on an equal basis with others.
In Finland, we have a new Disability Services Act which entered into force in 2025, and that underscores this approach by emphasizing equality individual needs, but mostly independent living in addition to inclusion.
And so states have made some meaningful steps towards fulfilling their obligations, we're certainly not there yet.
Protection and safety of displaced persons with disabilities requires strong legal frameworks, adequate resources, and inclusive humanitarian action, but primarily systemic inclusion and participation, meaningful participation.
And the purpose in the end is to ensure that no one is left behind, whether in state protection mechanisms or mechanisms funded by states.
Thank you very much.
Much merit, very helpful.
The one thing I'm hearing very interestingly is that we go to many disability events and we hear, yeah, we have good policies, but implementation is lacking, but we have to agree that on refugees with disabilities, those good policies are not here yet.
We are even one more step back.
We still need to create those good policies of disability policies that are refugee inclusive and refugee policies that are disability inclusive.
Thank you so much for that.
Now I'm inviting our interesting and very diverse panel, which is going to do a miraculous job of squeezing all their amazing points in 8 minutes and even less each.
I invite our panel to join me here.
While I'm introducing them, please accompany them with a round of applause.
We have doctor Marcus Schiffer from the UNCRPD Committee.
We have Professor Janice Lord from Harvard Project on Disability and University of Baltimore.
We have Eric Ne Gundhi from United Disabled Persons of Kenya, the chairperson.
We have Anna Plus from European Disability Forum and UN Committee on elimination of discrimination against women.
And last but definitely the best, not the best, all of them are the best, but Marshespan from newly elected committee member of the CRPD committee from Armenia.
All right.
While I'm taking the seat, I again want to do we have enough chairs for everybody? All right.
So we're going to start by coming to you, Marcus, as a current and active member of the CRPD committee, To answer that $1 million of how has been CRPD implemented when it comes to refugees with disabilities? We know that CRPD is actually pretty good in terms of providing that opportunity and allowing that interpretation.
But being fair, how would you assess that implementation so far? Thank you, Am.
Thanks a lot for inviting me.
I very much appreciate being here.
I will not assess how the CRPD has been implemented because before we can assess that, we need to figure out how the CRPD impacts the processes that persons with disabilities in refugee situations go through and how it protects them.
In the next few minutes, I will walk along the asylum procedure an asylum seeker goes through and point some of the main areas of impact of the CRPD.
I will confine myself to matters under the Refugee Convention.
I will not address the very important areas of internally displaced persons and persons in migration situations that are not refugees.
This part I will not address because it's too much.
Will include as much as I can the jurisprudence of our committee.
Now, refugees have, by definition, a well founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group, or political opinion, as the Refugee Convention says.
They are on arrival in the asylum state, usually in a situation of high vulnerability.
The Refugee Convention therefore puts various obligations on the asylum state about how to treat refugees.
It defines their legal status and guarantees a broad range of rights.
The most foundational obligation, however, that the Refugee Convention of 1951 and its 1967 protocol put on an asylum state is the duty to provide a procedure to determine whether an asylum seeker meets the legal requirements of a refugee.
The reason for this is if there is no such procedures, the rights of refugees would remain purely theoretical.
This is where the first impact of the CRPD Convention can be seen.
Article 18 of the Convention mandates states to ensure and I quote that persons with disabilities are not deprived on basis of disability of their ability to utilize relevant processes such as immigration proceedings.
This provision creates a right to use such procedures as our committee held in our case, Sherlock against Australia 2021.
And this also applies to the rights of asylum seekers in the procedures for the determination of their refugee status.
We have a direct right in the Convention.
This is important on several levels.
First, the right to use asylum procedures as guaranteed by Article 18 CRPD entails an obligation of the asylum state to assess and determine the existence of a disability of a specific asylum seeker.
Without such a determination, the asylum state could not guarantee the rights under the Convention.
This is an enormously important duty of the asylum state, at the very beginning of an asylum procedure, it has to carefully establish the existence of a disability and this needs to be done in close interaction with the asylum seeker and it must not be based on a medical understanding of disability but has to follow the human rights model.
Only then can the asylum state know what procedural accommodations it needs to provide.
In this context, asylum states also have to take into account the existence of multiple and intersectional discriminations.
The Refugee Convention itself in its Article 3 contains a prohibition based on race of discrimination based on race, religion, or country of origin.
These grounds and disability may well form a situation of multiple or intersectional discrimination that needs to be considered in the asylum procedure.
Second, Article 18 mandates asylum states to design their procedures for the determination of refugee status in full compliance with the CRPD.
This means, in particular, that the right to access to justice as guaranteed in Article 13 of the Convention is fully applicable in asylum procedure.
As a consequence, asylum states have to provide all procedural accommodations required to ensure effective access to justice for persons with disabilities in asylum procedures.
They have to render asylum procedures fully accessible to all persons with disabilities.
This means, for example, that they need to provide sign language interpretation for def asylum seekers, provide persons with intellectual disabilities with trusted persons, adapt procedure for the requirements of person with psychosocial disabilities, et cetera Third, the existence of a disability does not only have consequences for the asylum procedure, but for many other measures the asylum state is responsible for.
First, the living conditions during the asylum procedure.
You mentioned this before, where we often encounter detention.
Our committee put a strong emphasis on the living conditions of asylum seekers, including in asylum detention in our concluding observations on Greece in 2019 during the asylum crisis in that country.
Such detention facilities need to comply with the requirements of the CRPD fully, not partially.
Once an asylum seeker has been conferred refugee status, we could walk through all this person's right under the Refugee Convention.
I cannot do this for lack of time.
I would rather mention one last consequence that CRPD Convention has on refugee situations.
It pertains to those situations where refugee status has been denied to a person and deportation proceedings begin.
International human rights law contains the principle of non refulement.
No person may be deported to a country where she runs the risk of being tortured or exposed to inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.
Our committee has ample jurisprudence on this principle based on Article 15 of the Convention.
There are many individual communications on this question, most of which were lodged against Sweden.
Why Sweden? Because three migration lawyers in Sweden figured out that they can apply to our committee and Sweden always complies with enquiring measures.
It has never not complied with one.
I cannot go into the details here as tempting as it is.
What I can say is that this jurisprudence ensures that persons with disabilities are protected under the principle of non refoulement an equal basis with other persons, including in situations where in the receiving state, there is insufficient health services to prevent the person from being exposed to situations of inhuman or degrading treatment or even death, as we've had in our case law.
Now, my 8 minutes have passed more quickly than I anticipated.
I tried to give you a brief relatively legal overview because the law is something that I know and that I hope I could contribute something to this side event and it also shows the CRPD is law.
And it needs to be used as law just as it is being used by the three migration lawyers in Sweden.
So I would encourage everybody to use the CRPD as an advocacy tool, but also as a legal tool.
Thank you very much.
Thank.
All right.
We have a homework using CRBD not only as an advocacy tool, but also as a legal tool going to court and taking governments to court as much as we can.
Thank you so much, Marcus Rai, I agree with you, 8 minutes is very short, but we should start a campaigns against the Cs Bureau asking for longer time for.
Let's see what happens.
All right.
I go to Janet Lord, who has a lot to tell us about the intersection of the CRPD and Refugee Convention.
We were just chatting and I was telling her I'm going to tell you if a government comes to you and says, Janet, I want to be a better government in protecting and ensuring that I'm what some of that we heard from Marcus.
I'm going to implement these things in terms of protecting and ensuring implementation of my obligations on refugees with disabilities about CRPD before they take me to court, I want to do that.
What would be your recommendation to them? Very, very briefly, 8 minutes.
How about talk to Alham and Marcus.
Well, thank you so much and great thanks to Kenya and Finland and Armenia and all the other co sponsors.
This is wonderful to be part of this event.
Thank you so much.
I recall that Kenya was very instrumental in the drafting of the CRPD in supporting the elaboration of a separate article to address the protection of people with disabilities and situations of risk.
It's really that article that helps us activate the CRPD, and link it up with the Refugee Convention.
I wanted to make that point and that recollection.
Disability has always been a marker of exclusion in immigration.
Unfortunately, that's the starting point.
Already, we have disability as some kind of a suspect category.
Um, before we even start talking about refugees, about people fleeing persecution from their homeland and seeking shelter and refuge in another country.
Of course, the United States, wrote the book on this over at Ellis Island.
We're very close to Ellis Island.
Disability studies scholars have exposed, what that exclusion looked like.
Even if a person with a disability and usually they're going on sort of what they think someone is disabled, there was no, you know, a rational way that they were sorting this through.
But they would just make an assumption that this person would not be able to support himself or herself and they would just exclude them.
Even if the person had proof that they were going into a paid job.
So they would be separated from this family.
That's where we start from.
We have to recognize that.
We also have to recognize that the 1951 Refugee Convention primarily was designed to protect political and religious dissidents from 20th century fascist regimes.
It's structurally ill suited at the get go to accommodate asylum claims grounded in disability related type of persecution.
That's unfortunate and even though people with disabilities were among the first, um, killed by the Nazi regime, they were relatively invisible during the conventions negotiations.
So that's kind of our unfortunate starting point.
But as we've heard, the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities gives us an opportunity to sort of reactivate protection for persons with disabilities who are seeking refugee status.
So it's up to us to make it active.
That's as Marcus, I think is just very eloquently said.
So in order to address this at the national level, which Alahamas uh, has asked me to try to sketch a few things out.
We first have to look at how we're framing disability at the national.
What is the disability law framework in place? What does it look like? We can assume that a particular country has ratified the treaty unless the United States.
I think all countries have ratified the treaty.
What have they actually done to to create a framework that can be accommodating, whether in immigration or any other legal context.
What does the domestic law look like? What do accessibility standards look like? What's access to justice look like? All of these markers are really important.
Is disability recognized as a prohibited ground of discrimination? Is reasonable accommodation part of that.
Those are the basic things we would want to know.
Before we get into looking at how individuals seeking refugee status might be accommodated within the framework of immigration refugee law and procedures.
We know that absent a robust disability law framework, we're likely to see all sorts of barriers, reasonable accommodations not being provided, inaccessible asylum procedures, lack of accessible documentation and so forth.
We know that Asylum decision makers are also hampered by inadequate understanding of disability but also inadequate country of origin information on disability related human rights country conditions.
This has been made worse by the United States because we had done a lot of work in the State Department Human Rights Cory reports that are relied upon by asylum decision makers in this country, at least, and they've wiped away all of the um you know, information on disability and basically everything else too.
I'm not sure where that information is going to be found, which is incredibly unfortunate.
Other countries still are gathering data and doing a bit of a better job to address disability related human rights conditions.
The other challenge I think is that persecutors of persons with disabilities in other countries are frequently private actors, family members, caregivers, institutional staff rather than state agents, and this complicates attribution under the standard state as perpetrator framework.
Again, knowledge, understanding really needs to be carried over at the domestic level and training of immigration officers.
I'll give you an example from this country, one of the organizations I'm part of is an OPD.
There was outreach when we had a number of, um, folks coming over from Afghanistan a couple of years ago and they called and they said, Well, we're not really sure.
There's a lot of Afghans with disabilities, we have no idea what to do.
The resettlement offices were not doing a good job of thinking about some of the basics and we have answers at the international level.
For example, the WHO assistive products list actually provides really good guidance on what ought to be provided whether that's in a refugee camp, whether that's in an urban setting or whatever.
There's information out there, but it's not really getting to the folks who actually need it.
Marcus has mentioned conditions of detention before this administration in the United States, there was a unit within ICE specifically addressing what they would call vulnerable people at risk in the immigration and refugee.
Context, but that too has gone away under the current regime.
I guess I'm ending on a bad note.
I'm grumpy about the state of affairs in this country.
But I think that finally, what we need to do, I'm going to get back to the international level, the Office of the High Commissioner for refugees has done some work on disability, but I don't think they've done enough.
They have not adopted specific guidance for decision makers like they've done with respect to children.
Women.
What happens when they develop that guidance? You do see it trickle down to the national level.
States then adopt their own guidance and whatever Canada has adopt good guidance, UK on different groups.
I think the UN High Commissioner for Refugees needs to take it more seriously.
That's something that Gerard Quinn really worked on when he was special peur.
But I think he would agree with me not much has really happened.
I think I'll leave it at that.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Great.
Thank you so much, Janet.
Just to your last point, the UNIC executive committee does have some conclusions and actually recently they opened up the conclusion on disability for revision.
But to be very honest, I mean, we basically were told that there is not much room to influence and if you're lucky, they're going to save what we have because there is a lot of pushback unfortunately right now from certain governments that we can all know what they are.
Um, on anything about inclusion, disability, diversity, and all of that.
We are in a very difficult time right now, but there are some good things happening out there.
Eric N Gandhi, chairperson of United Disabled Persons of Kenya, going to tell us in the next 8 minutes or so about some of the good things that are happening in Kenya.
A very interesting project that I'm of course, biased about it because I'm the one who brought colleagues together and had a the honor to be part of it.
Let's hear from Eric about that great innovation in Kenya overse Thank you very much, Al Ham and good evening, colleagues, friends.
We're almost there, please hang in there.
Let me As I talk about this project just commences by retaliating what my colleague doctor Mone mentioned and just state the fact that indeed, Kenya is quite progressive in terms of disability and refugee laws in this in light of Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, and also the Refugee Act 2021.
And as doctor Monene mentioned, the statistics, indeed, we have about 836,000 refugees and asylum seekers in Kenya.
Of which many of them are also persons with disabilities to, talk about at least 16% of that.
Yet, we see that with all these, we see that refugees with disabilities still experience barriers in terms of participation, in terms of documentation, and indeed in terms of participation.
So I This is where then we realize that there is a problem.
The problem is quite simple really, that disability and displacement are often treated separately and that's what Marcus and Julia and Janet have actually highlighted.
With this gap, United disabled persons, UDPK which is the umbrella body of organizations for persons with disabilities in Kenya, the refugee led organizations Network Reiln and of course, supported by international refugee assistance program, IRAP financially and technically to come up with a project around inclusion of displaced persons with disabilities.
This project, which I actually want to talk about is that the Well, persons refugees with disabilities were actually the innovation thing about this project is that they were approached themselves to highlight what are the problems? What are the needs? What are the issues? When they put these items at the forefront, then this project is there to support them deal with these issues.
They highlighted three priorities.
One, the area of legal access pathways and protection.
The second has to do with the barriers around registration, asylum seeking, and disability certification.
The third item has to do with the meaningful participation of refugees with disabilities.
Why do we think this project then was quite innovative? It brought organizations which quite often don't work together.
The disability rights movement and the refugee led movement.
Brought together by this project then, um, We come together and through those priority areas, we did a couple of things together.
In priority one where we're talking about the legal issues, legal pathways and protection, we indeed had legal aid clinic for refugees with disabilities.
We also trained refugees with disabilities as paralegals.
That means that these persons who are trained and in community, then they could provide information, they could provide referrals, and indeed, they could provide legal assistance to communities as trusted members of that community.
In terms of the second priority, there are a couple of things also we did there and we continue to do.
This has to do with the removal of barriers around registration and disability certification.
So as doctor Monene mentioned, we've worked together with the government of Kenya through the National Council of Persons with Disabilities, the Ministry of Labor and Social Protection, and of course, the Directorate of Refugee Services.
So that we highlight the issue and talk about what more can we do around these items.
The issues around the policy discussions, technical dialogues, and all that.
Those are some of the items that we looked in priority number two.
We also, of course, did research here and I know Alham' looking at me with time.
Let me just continue and finish this that we indeed looked around Now, the issue of research and documented items around these issues of displacement and refugees with disabilities.
In the third priority area where we're talking about meaningful participation of refugees with disabilities.
We indeed noted that most often refugees with disabilities are not consulted are not engaged, but programs are designed for them.
We thought that one of the things that we can do here is invest in leadership of refugees with disabilities.
Indeed, one of the other thing that has come up is the formation of National Association for refugees with disabilities.
This platform then provides an engagement, an area where they can continue championing these issues.
I think one other things I could mention is that beyond the priority areas, we noted that the organizations of persons with disabilities have to also be capacity built around these issues, but also refugee led organizations so that as they do their work, then they champion inclusion of displaced persons with disabilities.
I think three things we've learned from this project.
One is that in terms of a you know, consultation in terms of coming up with programs for refugees with disabilities, we will have to work with them and not for them.
I think the other thing number two that we did notice is the issue of partnership that disability rights organizations have to work with refugee led organizations.
This is more sustainable.
I think the third item has to do with the meaningful participation of refugees with disabilities and we noted that it has to go beyond consultation and go into engagement and more decision making.
Indeed, they have to be on the table with refugees with disabilities.
Beyond this, I think what we've seen as an impact is that we are seeing, for example, that a In our strategic plan as United disabled persons or UDPK we have now ensured that and embedded the issue of disability refugee disability inclusion in our strategic plan 2025 to 2029.
I think we also have and shortly, I think we will just show you some of the the challenges, some of the barriers, and indeed the aspirations of refugees with disabilities in a documentary that we've come up with in this project.
I think El Ham, I must have exhausted my 8 minutes by now.
Thank you.
But don't worry, you were not alone.
Maybe we can see the video very quickly.
My name is Christian Ligma.
I'm a refugees with disabilities, and I'm the one who is going to conduct data about barriers and the challenges that refugees with disabilities are facing in everyday life.
Refugees with disabilities are both refugees and people with disabilities.
Advancing inclusion and participation of refugees with disabilities in Kenya is a project designed to address a long existing gap, which is exclusion of refugees with disabilities from refugee responses and from disability inclusion efforts.
Refugees with disabilities face barriers that intersect between displacement and disability.
We should not leave anyone behind.
And for us to not leaving anyone behind means we need to have inclusion.
And inclusion begins from our own organization, from our own working space.
Intersectional challenges require intersectional solution.
That's the basis of the model that we have adopted in Kenya.
Basically bringing together the Refugee led Organ Network of Kenya and the National Umbrella Organization of People with Disabilities, United Disabled Persons of Kenya for collaboration, mutual learning, and ongoing exchange.
This project has given United disabled persons of Kenya an opportunity to work with a refugee led organization so that we can deliberately address the barriers.
What we are calling upon is to consider co designing together with the affected population.
In this case, it is having the persons with disability in the room to co design with them.
For example, refugees with disabilities themselves are at the center of this project.
We have brought together a cohort of refugees with disabilities from all parts of the country, from diverse group, including people with different impairments, men and women, young and old, We learned from one another and also the priorities of the project were identified on what are the key priority area that are so agile to them.
Making sure that the project remains on track, reflecting the reality of lives of refugees with disabilities.
Only the person wears the shoes can tell where the shoe is pending.
They should be part and parcel on matters that are affecting their own lives.
What matters is that these interviews conducted by refugees with disabilities ourselves.
I'm going to meet the people with disability whom I'm going to interview in their places where they're living.
It will give them the positive attitude since those who are taking out the interview with them, they are the same people like them, and the barriers are the same.
We all need to advocate for each other.
One major challenge, for example, that they mentioned was about legal opportunities, for example, moving to a third country like resettlement options or unifying their family members abroad.
Refugees with disabilities are facing many challenges on mobility, documentation, and participation.
The greatest challenge is that they can't access disability certificate, and that one is the key to many things.
Possibly.
This is very important to make sure that refugees with disabilities are also included and can actively participate and become part of the Kenyan society.
Other organizations of persons with disabilities in other countries can also use this model where they are learning and working together with the refugee led organization.
Here we are part of a process, response and solution.
It's not about what we say, it's about what we do.
I want their voices to be heard whenever they are making decisions, whenever they are talking anything concerning, persons ability, not all of us reach out.
At least they are important, also, like the other person who has no disability.
All right.
So I think you have seen enough of me there in the video and I Yeah, but I really hope that I really believe that this cross movement collaboration is a solution to many challenges that we and the disability movement are facing, working with refugee groups, women's group, children's group, and others.
I really hope that this model can be replicated in other contexts.
We are very short of time.
I am moving towards our next speaker, Anna Pils.
As you see in the title, we talk about parties to the CRPD and not just the state parties.
One of those parties is the European Union.
As some of you may be aware, we have recently seen the launch of the EU Pact on Asylum and migration, which unfortunately doesn't really address needs and obligations of the EU under the CRPD and beyond.
Anna, who is the Secretary-General of the European Disability Forum, will tell us about some of those gaps that we have identified about the EU Migration Pact.
Thank you very much.
I don't know if the mic is okay.
Thank you very much.
It's a real pleasure to be here.
Thank you for the invitation to the organizers, Kenya, Finland and Armenia is really great honor for us to share with you our experience working for refugees with disabilities.
We would like to take this opportunity to congratulate also Kenya for such as important work in relation with refugees with disabilities, with an inspiration.
As for all of us, thank you also for sharing all the thoughts, experiences, and commitment, jurisprudency, in relation with the CRPD and also how to work with refugees with disabilities.
Migration, displacement is a real issue in the European Union.
This is part of the regression of fundamental rights everywhere and we can see that very clearly in our region, unfortunately.
When this issue goes to a person with disabilities, this situation, as you can imagine, is much more complicated and concerning for us.
IDF has not very long experience working with refugees.
I think we are starting working with refugee with disabilities around 11 years ago.
Thus was when our members from the south of Europe, particularly Greece, Italy, Spain, were having the first experiences in relation with refugees with disabilities.
At that time, ten years ago, more or less, the only way to work this issue with the cooperation with the UNHCR.
That was the way that we find just to establish this issue in the agenda for people with disabilities.
Until that moment, we didn't were really aware about the impact of migration humanitarian crisis, the war, et cetera in the life of many people with disabilities in our region.
At that time, particularly, I would like to mention that, for example, the disability forum in Greece, they were very engaged to offer, for example, some guidance to the national authority to make more accessible the camps for refugee.
The Italian Disability Forum, for example, where more Spence is offering individual solutions for refugees with disabilities when they came and they are coming every day, unfortunately, to Italy.
In Spain, Espans was more focusing on women and girls with disabilities refugees.
And for example, one of the result of this work was a publication offering some guidance for how to deal with women and girls with disabilities in the refugee camps and also in the new residences for all these population.
But I must say thanks to all this experience, EDF taking into consideration in our agenda the refugee issues.
For example, trying also to support in informal network on refugees with disabilities in our region, which is very important also as the consultative population that we can also take into consideration when we are negotiating and try to influence, for example, the EU policies.
I would like to say that in this moment, for example, the the cooperation with the UNHCR is particularly also important in the world of EDF in relation with this policy in Europe.
Thanks to this cooperation, we were able to analyze also the main challenges that we have in front of us also in relation with the definition of this kind of policies and legislation in relation with refugees with disabilities.
We have very positive practices also after the situation of Ukraine that gave also the chance to other members of Edv such as, for example, in Latvia, in our members in Poland or, for example, in Romania, working also with refugees with disabilities.
These joint analysis give us the five, six main areas of work.
We share with you that invisibility and the gap of data is a real issue.
It's a real issue because it's impossible now very often to show in front of the European Commission, European institutions, for example, the real impact of this lack of inclusion of disabilities in the EU policies in relation with that.
It's also impossible for us to show, for example, the regression for fundamental rights for this population.
This is essential.
In this regard also about invisibility, we want to highlight the fact that many disabilities, people with refugee with disabilities present an invisible disabilities.
Particularly, for example, when we are talking about psychosocial disabilities or even intellectual disabilities, there is always a doubt for authorities, for example, to protect these people.
And this is something that we want to highlight how difficult is also to ensure that all these people are going to be considered also disabled, even if they cannot physically show this disability.
Secondly, for us, Yeah.
As you mentioned, I don't need to go in detail in that.
We know how exclusion they suffer in relation in the camps, for example, and in relation with the services because the consideration of disabilities and the extra cost of disabilities, not just for the person with disability, but also for the families, for example, is not considered really in line with the CRPD.
Exclusion from social protection and also, for example, deportation.
Forced deportation and hot deportation is a fact.
It's a fact even if it's against the CRPD and other legal instrument.
But it's a fact because sometimes the people are alone, they don't receive enough support, particularly legal support accessible.
That means not just here the support in the legal process is essential.
For example, offering sign language interpretation into their own languages.
This is something for us essential.
We are trying to influence this process, but still pending, unfortunately, and this is why the deportation Um the fourth issue really very important is the risk of trafficking for refugees with disabilities, particularly women and girls with disabilities.
Women and girls who became disabled because the process of displacement, because the migration process.
Very often, this is something that we have to take into consideration.
Disabilities is also the result of the displacement of refugees and the way to address disabilities in such circumstances is very different.
In relation with women and girls with disabilities, as I mentioned before, the risk of violence is very high.
Many of them comes being raped.
Can been really victims of many forms of discrimination and violence.
But particularly, I want to highlight that the possibility to be victim of sexual exploitation for these women and girls is very, very high.
Finally, we know that there are discriminatory and in the field of health, for example, because very often refugee with disabilities need health services.
But health services are not really available for refugees with disabilities.
Particularly, as I said before, in the *** in the assessment of the disabilities.
They are not taken into consideration.
They are not a priority for the state parties because there is already a very important number of people waiting for the recognition of disability certificate.
This is also very important obstacle also to protect refugee with disability, for example, from deportation.
Finally, I would like to offer a very good practice that we have recently, also, for example, working, working with the EU Asylum Agency.
They published in 2024 a report on persons with disabilities on asylum and recently, they offer some guidance more clearly in this regard.
The only way to improve our CRPD in relation with Article 11, and this is what I would like to ask here is to ask civil society organizations, GPOs, also to be involved of that, to put in their own agenda the issues of refugees with disabilities because if not, the risk to go back is huge.
Thank you very much for the opportunity.
Yeah.
The fact that we're having these conversations is, I think, a great step forward, having more organizations of people with disabilities seriously working on inclusion of refugees with disabilities.
I know that we already passed our time, but no one can go home without hearing from Musk, right? So, we have Ms Hapspian Happian like Hufian neighbors who is running this fantastic organization, disability rights agenda in Armenia, and we celebrated yesterday his election to the UNCRPD committee.
So tell us about future, what we should expect from committee.
We're going to come to your door from yesterday, not tomorrow to ask for, you know, those putting those impact on paper, policies, recommendations, and holding governments accountable.
Thank you.
Thank you, Dear Alham.
First, let me turn on my stopwatch, so I'll follow the time strictly.
It's really honored to join this discussion with the honorable panel members and huge thanks to the governments of Kenya, Finland, and Armenia and other co organizers of this event.
It's really honor because of the way we celebrate the tentieth anniversary of the CRPD and also 75th anniversary of Refugee Commission.
But before I continue, I I should say that the views I share today are my own and do not necessarily reflect the views of any organization or institution which I affiliated now.
But because I'm not yet taken my functions as CRPD member, I'm not yet speaking as a member of the CRPD elected member.
I offer these reflections today as an advocate who has recently for three years, worked with hundreds of refugees with disabilities and in different contexts to protect their rights, their right to housing, their right to have documentation and so on.
This is a no disclaimer that I should say is that I'll share the thoughts that I share are very broad patterns, but not universal truths because every context and every person is different.
We should always think about the individualization of the response of a the needs of the persons with refugees with disabilities.
Refugees with disabilities are not a single group.
So the context and the cultural environment is very important in each case.
Of course, we've seen many important developments beyond the convention itself and in 2019, we saw that the Security Council adopted a resolution on disability and this was a huge milestone and they uh recognize the disproportionate impact of armed conflicts on persons with disabilities and calling humanitarian agencies and actors for the protection and meaningful participation of persons with disabilities worldwide.
But of course, whenever displacement occurs, we see the same recurring pattern, sadly, and persons with disabilities disproportionately face disproportionate barriers before, during, and after displacement.
So we still do not have the good examples that we want to see.
Of course, the good example in case of the displacement is not having any displacement, but still the response should be disability inclusive.
Of course, I would like to concentrate on one of my priorities, which is dimension that receives far little attention, it's liberty of movement and nationality and the situation of undocumented persons.
Because a Mostly governments love documents and they try to document everything.
They require document for everything and disability is not an exception.
And I believe CRPD Commission when we say about protection and the rights of persons with disabilities, when we are not talking about persons having recognized disabilities or any documents proving that they have disability.
This is first of all, identity, and the governments should ensure that their obligations cover persons who identify as having disabilities, not those only that uh, documents.
Of course, because this is an important issue for refugees with disabilities because when people flee conflict, they frequently lose their documents, civil registration records, medical files, and of course, disability certificates, and of course, there are issues when the countries do not recognize the disability recognition of each other.
So and of course, when you do not have documents, sometimes government refused to provide the services that you need.
So it's a precondition for many social protection schemes and cash assistance and so on.
And another challenge that I want to highlight is digitalization of the refugee related processes and it could be easier for the governments, but not for persons with refugees with disabilities, especially when there is a linguistic barriers to access the social services, especially in services.
So this rapid digitalization is creating new challenges.
Of course, accessibility is not still on the agenda of the governments and also humanitarian actors as well.
I criticize a lot of the UNHR because of their lack of accessibility and they mostly failed to support refugees with disabilities and even when they do a lot of preparedness stuff and they have information of mass displacement and they do not think about accessibility in persons with disabilities.
Then another issue is the higher risk of institutionalization when their governments do not have the housing options for persons with disabilities and independent living services, we see increase of institutionalization among persons with disabilities, especially those who previously had the opportunity to live independently in their own countries and in their environments.
In the new environments, the only option that the governments, uh uh, suggest them in the crisis situations is the institutions.
So this is challenging for many countries and societies, in my opinion.
So I want last thing I want to mention is that, We must stop treating disability inclusion as an optional add on.
It's an obligation under the convention and it's a law, of course.
It's not a loan luxurious things.
It's very basic things when we talk about the housing or social protection, it's not luxuries thing it's just very basic things to survive.
It's not about having economic advantage towards other members of the societies.
Another thing is the treatment towards refugees with disabilities and because of the stereotypes towards persons with disabilities and refugees with and without disabilities.
Sometimes there is a risk of violence towards refugees with disabilities because a the political groups, different political groups use this for their own agenda, and this could rise the risk of hate speech and the hate crimes in our society.
The last thing I want to mention is that we have many good examples at the local levels and we should not always find the solutions in the developed countries.
Many developing countries have good examples and we should but allocate more resources on finding these good practices.
I want to bring last example about my organization.
What we did in 2023 when Armenia hosts many refugees, 100,000 refugees with without disabilities and around 15% of them had disabilities, we started to a we hired refugees with disabilities as a staff members of our organization because they didn't have any organization established.
The solution for us to include them and to be the leaders within our organization.
So it's not always a different organizations.
This inclusion should be among OPIDs as well and we OPIDs should be very open towards different experiences.
It could be difficult, of course, and challenging to see other experiences that are not similar to yours.
It could be strange and it could be weird to you.
But still, we need to see the gaps that we have in Oedes as well, and also prioritize refugee response for persons with disabilities as a priority issue for international level as well.
That's what I wanted to say within 8 minutes.
Thank you.
I have so many important issues, violence against refugees with disabilities trafficking that Ana mentioned, collection of data, lots of lots of things, and I think we can have a one week workshop rather than 1 hour conversation.
But I hope that all of us leave this room with bringing this topic on the top of our list of work, whether it's as colleague.