Today, more national laws and policies protect the rights of persons with disabilities than ever before. Services are increasingly responsive to their specific needs, and there is increased attention on supporting people with disabilities to have access to sexual and reproductive health information and services as well as safe, healthy and satisfying intimate relationships. Statistical systems are better at capturing data relevant to their experiences. In telling a fuller story of the disparities and discrimination faced by persons with disabilities, these data help expose and close critical gaps.

One in five women globally is a person with a disability. Yet from households to parliaments, too few are empowered to make decisions that have far-reaching consequences for their bodies and lives. This includes fundamental choices about their sexual and reproductive health and rights, the foundation for bodily autonomy, wellbeing and ability to determine their own future.

Women and girls with disabilities may be up to three times more likely to be involuntarily sterilized than the general population. Violence also blocks women and girls with disabilities from realizing their full potential. Online and offline, in homes and chatrooms, they confront significant risks of harassment and harm, including rates of intimate partner violence two to four times higher than their counterparts without disabilities.

Change is happening but needs to pick up speed. UNFPA’s close collaboration with movements of women with disabilities has helped galvanize momentum. Together, we are developing tools to protect rights and choices and uproot discrimination. Our partnership with Women Enabled International has produced guidelines that are improving the quality of sexual and reproductive health care and services in over 70 countries, ensuring they meet the diverse needs of persons with disabilities. In Eastern Europe and Asia, UNFPA is training health-care providers on specific skills to assess and respond to gender-based violence against persons with disabilities. 

Through the We Decide programme, UNFPA promotes the human rights and social inclusion of persons with disabilities, particularly women and young people. Our goal is to expand access to sexual and reproductive health services as well as the information and education people need to make the best choices for themselves.  Today and every day, UNFPA stands with persons with disabilities globally in their call for action to protect and promote their fundamental rights, and support their leadership in shaping more inclusive and peaceful societies for everyone

The disabled voting bloc is growing as the U.S. population ages, but voters and advocates say the hurdles that make people feel excluded from the electoral process aren’t being addressed. That ranges from inaccessible campaign materials to former President Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris seldomly mentioning how issues like COVID-19 impact the disability community, as well as Trump making a statement at a rally last month that advocacy groups considered discriminatory.

“They should be treating us like we’re their path to victory because we are, frankly,” said Dom Kelly, the founder and CEO of New Disabled South, an advocacy group that focuses on disability rights in the South. “You win or lose because of disabled people, and if you don’t take our community seriously, that will reflect on the outcome of your campaign.”

Lisa Schur and her husband Doug Kruse lead the Program for Disabilities Research at Rutgers and co-wrote the new report, which also shows there are 7.1 million disabled voters in the battleground states of Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.

Schur said that disabled people are less likely to receive information about politics and can face numerous difficulties when voting in-person and by mail. All of it can lead to less participation.

“It’s kind of like death by a thousand cuts,” Schur said.

Matt Mills is a former Trump supporter and avid voter. The 41-year-old from Brown County in southern Ohio has lupus, polyneuropathy and received two kidney transplants since 2017.

This year, he’ll be voting for Harris because of her “proven track record” of advocating for health care policies he likes. Even so, he believes voters with disabilities are taken for granted.

“When we don’t see ourselves represented,” he said, “then we continue to get beat down and we get tired and we get discouraged.”

Jim Piet and Patricia Vincent-Piet of Concord, New Hampshire, both have cerebral palsy. The married couple say they’ve been dismissed by political candidates over the years when they try to talk with them — but also have had candidates be welcoming.

What concerns them most, though, are policies that impact their day-to-day lives.

“Just because I’m going to talk or be kind to people with disabilities does not mean that their policies are helpful,” said Vincent-Piet, 53.

Her 63-year-old husband gets assistance through Medicaid’s long-term care program, which helps provide medical and personal care to people with disabilities and chronic illnesses. Vincent-Piet is worried that Republicans will make cuts to Medicaid. They both plan to vote for Harris.

Trump, Harris disability outreach

In 2015, when Trump first ran for office, he flailed his arms in an apparent attempt to mock a disabled journalist. At a September rally in Erie, Pennsylvania, the former president falsely claimed Harris was “mentally impaired.” The American Association of People with Disabilities condemned Trump’s words as ableist and “harmful to people with disabilities.”

Trump campaign spokesperson Karoline Leavitt said Trump is “committed to making sure every voter, including voters with disabilities, can exercise their right to vote in the most important election of our lifetime.”

There’s more to engaging disabled voters, said Meighan Stone, who uses a wheelchair due to symptoms of long COVID.

“The focus on ableist jokes or whether or not disabled people are visibly at campaign events reduces disabled people to one thing,” Stone said, adding, “… That’s a level of discrimination we live with every day.”

Stone would like to see both candidates focus on solving how long it takes to get disability benefits — about 6-8 months, according to the federal government — and getting the Food and Drug Administration to approve a treatment for long COVID, saying, “I think both campaigns want to act as if they solved a pandemic and it’s over.”

The Harris campaign recently hired Anastasia Somoza as its disability engagement director. Somoza, who has cerebral palsy and uses a motorized wheelchair, said the Harris campaign will host an event with disabled entrepreneurs in Pittsburgh on Monday. Somoza also said she tries to make sure there’s a virtual option for all campaign events.

In 2023, the vice president met with leaders in the disability space about transportation issues, and she has proposed paying for home care with Medicare and eliminating subminimum wage for disabled workers.

But the two presidential campaigns could do more, said Holly Latham at #MEAction, which advocates for people with myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome. She said ads, fliers and events need to be accessible to all disabled people.

“Are they doing the basics? Are they providing alt-text (a written description of an image)?” Latham said. “Are they making sure they have interpreters for sign language and stuff like that?”

Disabled Folks for Kamala, a coalition of advocates, said a virtual Harris campaign event for disabled voters on Oct. 8 “did not meet the basic access requirements.” Marissa Ditkowsky, who has a form of muscular dystrophy, watched the event and said she was frustrated by the issues.

The Harris campaign said it “deeply regrets” the technical difficulties. A human wasn’t transcribing the closed captioning, and a sign language interpreter wasn’t visible at the beginning of the event.

“We want people to be thinking about us while they’re creating these spaces instead of coming around after the fact,” said Ditkowsky, who calls Harris the “clear choice” in the presidential race.

Training poll workers

The U.S. Election Assistance Commission is currently working with election officials to ensure that every American that’s eligible to vote can do so independently, privately and without restrictions, Commissioner Benjamin Hovland said.

He acknowledged the increasing need for more focused and adequate training on disabilities for election officials and poll workers — especially for things like anxiety or different ways of processing information — in hopes of setting up more accommodating polling places.

“No matter what it is or who someone is voting for, If somebody needs assistance, as a poll worker — which I say is the customer service face of our democracy — it’s your job to make sure that they can get through the process privately and independently and feel great about that,” Hovland said. “Give them the ‘I voted’ sticker and thank them. Just think about how that interaction matters.”

Patti Chang, 61, is blind and lives in Chicago. She said this feeling of exclusion that she and other people who live with disabilities encounter isn’t just found in politics.

“Until the society has higher expectations for people with disabilities and until society itself is more inclusive,” she said, “you’re going to see this not just in voting, but in almost everything you encounter.”

___

Associated Press data journalist Kasturi Pananjady contributed to this report

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Suddenly, you lose your legs. And you are wheelchair-bound for the rest of your life.

This is the experience of Abdu-Rahman Edward Koroma.

The organization he worked for, on whose service he had this life changing accident, abandoned him. Everywhere he looked for job, he was turned down.

As you would expect, Abdu-Rahman fell into depression.

Luckily, he managed to pick himself up. Today, he runs an NGO out of Bo city, advocating for marginalized communities, including people living with disabilities like him.

Abdu-Rahman, a fellow of Impact West Africa, explains how he got to this point in this interview with ManoReporters.   

The conversation commenced with an explanation of his organization – CSEED-SL.

Source: ManoReporters TV

THE ROLE OF NGOS IN ACHIEVING NATIONAL DEVELOPMENT