“United in action to rescue and achieve the SDGs for, with and by persons with disabilities”

On the occasion of the International Day of Persons with Disabilities, persons with disabilities should openly debate their rights, identify problems, and reveal different talents, organizations should honor those who contribute to the changing society.

As well as the review of the implementation of laws and international commitments made by the government and UN agencies to ensure the rights of persons with disabilities.

Some important announcements are also made on behalf of the Nepal government, but there has been no new commitment from the government for the past few years.

In this context, by raising the profound issue of gender equality in the disability movement, it has been able to empower many women and has been conducting rehabilitation programs to establish access to justice for women and girls with disabilities affected by various forms of discrimination.

Therefore, by taking this opportunity of International Day of Persons with disability, raising our voices at the national and international levels, we would like to raise the following concern with the commitment to play a leading role in building an egalitarian society without discrimination, disability, and gender equality;

• Various awareness-raising programs should be conducted continuously against gender-based violence against women and girls with disabilities,
• The government should focus on organizations that are operating safe houses for access to justice for women and girls affected by violence and discrimination,
• A special program should be conducted for the access to justice and rehabilitation of women and girls with disabilities affected by violence, as well as strengthening the judicial bodies to make them accessible,
• The government of Nepal should implement international commitments such as; UNCRPD, SDGs, CEDAW, CRC, etc,
• The government of Nepal should include the rights of women and girls with disabilities when revising or making new laws and policies related to disability, women, and human rights,
• To use the knowledge and experience of people with disabilities, arrangement of budgets to make them enterprising should be implemented and marketing of the materials produced by them should be done by the local, provincial, and federal governments,
• Disability and women’s issues should be observed from the perspective of human rights and made a common issue of development and should be analysed and implemented from an intersectional aspect,
• Public infrastructures should be built with disability-friendly and accessible according to global standards,
• Employment opportunities should be created for people with disabilities who have qualifications, abilities, and skills in government, international organizations and private sector according to their interests,
• Disability during disasters and pandemics such as earthquakes, floods, and landslides, ensuring gender-friendly services and ensuring accessible infrastructure,
• Women with disabilities should be empowered and represented at all levels of the state so that they can fight all forms of violence, discrimination, and injustice,
• The data of all children of school-going age with disabilities should be collected and arrangements should be made to get education in the community, the responsibility should be on the local level and the federal government,
• When implementing the SDG, persons with disability should be the priority to meet its objective ‘No one leave behind’.

Tika Dahal

Chairperson and NDWA family