From DEBRA@oln.comlink.apc.orgFri Sep 8 09:13:32 1995 Date: Thu, 07 Sep 1995 08:51:00 +0100 From: Debra Guzman Reply to: beijing-conf@tristram.edc.org To: beijing-conf@tristram.edc.org, beijing95-l@netcom.com Subject: WCW: Disabled Women's Alliance [The following text is in the "ISO-8859-1" character set] [Your display is set for the "US-ASCII" character set] [Some characters may be displayed incorrectly] ## Original in: /HRNET/WOMEN ## author : DEBRA@OLN.comlink.apc.org ## date : 06.09.95 [Disabled Women's Alliance] The Disabled Women's Alliance is a loose-knit network of women from the United States and Canada. The group is diverse in terms of race, age and disability. Members of the group range i n age from 18 to 62 and include women with physical disabilities, deaf, hard of hearing, blind and low-vision women. Almost half of the group comes from the San Francisco Bay area, birthplace of the Independent Living movement. Many members of the group have been involved in either women's issues or disability rights work for a number of years and have been frustrated at the barriers to inclusion that exist in both the women's and disability communities. In the early 1990's, wom en with disabilities started to change that and, for the first time, began to establish conscious linkages to focus specifically on their issues and concerns. In 1992, over one hundred disabled women from the Americas to Zimbabwe gathered at Independence '92 in Vancouver, British Columbia. This day-long conference was exclusively devoted to disabled women's issues. At that meeting, plans were developed to att end the UN gathering in Beijing. In all, more than two hundred disabled women from around the globe are expected to attend the UN Women's Conference. Beijing Activites The decision to organize for Beijing was not an easy one. The lack of wheelchair and other disability access in China presented enormous obstacles. The financial risk was also great. Women with disabilities face high rates of unemployment and poverty. Wi th no organized financial networking base, the group faced a tremendous task just to raise the money to go. Furthermore, China's controversial eugenics policies have prompted debate about whether women with disabilities should even attend the conference. Some disabled individuals and at least one organization are boycotting the conference in protest. China is p lanning to enact a national law that calls for the forced sterilization of people with mental retardation and other disabilities that deprive them of the ability to live independently. Such a law could have sweeping effect in China, where wheelchair ramp s and other accommodations for the disabled are virtually nonexistent. In a first of its kind undertaking, a group of 50 women with disabilities will travel to Beijing, China this fall to participate in the United Nations' Conference on Women. They are part of a larger group of over 200 disabled women from around the globe w ho are going to China to press for greater recognition of their concerns. "The women's movement has not paid enough attention to us," said group organizer and wheelchair rider Corbett O'Toole, who points out that women with disabilities face discriminati on and social displacement in a number of respects including high unemployment, denial of parental rights, forced institutionalization, and lack of access to adequate health care. Organizing this journey is a challenging proposition. The average unemployment rate for disabled women is 83%. Additionally, China is virtually inaccessible to people with disabilities, so the group must arrange for its own transportation and hire its ow n personal care attendants and sign language interpreters. To date, the effort has been supported by more than $70,000 in in-kind contributions. In addition to pushing for greater recognition at the U.N. Conference, the group will meet with disability leaders in China to discuss the status of disabled people within the country. China has come under fire from international human rights groups for enacting reproductive policies aimed at forcibly sterilizing people with mental retardation and other disabilities which deprive them of the ability to live independently. ------------------------------------------------------ World Institute on Disability 510 Sixteenth St. Suite 100, Oakland, CA 94612, USA Tel: +1 (510) 251-4355 Fax: +1 (510) 763-4109 wid@igc.apc.org