Policy paper

WomanKind Worldwide

Published 23 July 2018

Form for submitting commitments for the Global Disability Summit 2018

Your organisation:

Type of organisation: Civil Society Organisation

Name of organisation: Womankind Worldwide

Charter for Change

Please read the attached Summit Charter for Change: the principal legacy of the Summit. If your organisation is happy to sign up to the C `harter, please confirm by putting a cross in the box below.

My organisation signs up to the Summit Charter for Change ☒

Your organisation’s commitments to achieve the rights of people with disabilities in developing countries:

A. Commitments to eliminate Stigma and Discrimination:

Please select the category which your commitment most relates to: Other

Please enter the exact wording of the commitment/s, including details of others who has supported its development (75 words limit):

Together with women’s movements, we will work towards eliminating all forms of VAWG, including against women and girls with disabilities. We commit to supporting movements and WROs led by and for women with disabilities to evidence their specific experiences of discrimination and oppression and what works for VAWG prevention and response. We will create platforms for women’s rights activists and VAWG survivors to advocate for change, and advocate for CRPD and CEDAW frameworks to be implemented at all levels.

Timeframe and/or implementation plan (75 words limit)

Ongoing during the lifetime of the Womankind Worldwide Strategy – 2016 – 2021, which sets out our ambition to support and nourish diverse and independent national women’s movements. In delivering this strategy, we will work not only with WROs led by and for women with disabilities, but also a diverse range of organisations that make up women’s movements.. We will support them to understand how discrimination based on disability is multiplied when combined with other discriminations and oppressions including those based on sexuality, caste, religion, economic status, age, location and race.

B. Commitments for Economic Empowerment:

Please select the category which your commitment most relates to: Amending legal frameworks

Please enter the exact wording of the commitment/s, including details of others who have supported its development (75 words limit):

Together with women’s movements we will work towards realising economic rights for women with disabilities and control over resources. Womankind Worldwide is committed (OR say we commit to…)to seeking structural change in the way economies are run so that they better reflect and support the lived realities of women with disabilities. Womankind is also committed to supporting partners to advocate for decent work for women with disabilities and investing in services of care and health.

Timeframe and/or implementation plan (75 words limit)

Ongoing during the lifetime of the Womankind Worldwide Strategy – 2016 – 2021.

C. Commitments for Data Disaggregation

Please select the category which your commitment most relates to: Commit to use the Washington Group questions

Please enter the exact wording of the commitment/s, including details of others who have supported its development (75 words limit):

Womankind Worldwide have included the short Washington Group questions in its standard programme guidelines and templates in use with partners. All partners are asked to integrate disability considerations during programme design and disaggregate data for women with disabilities in their monitoring and evaluation systems. Womankind supports partners to analyse disaggregated data during project implementation and adapt approaches accordingly. Womankind will use the data to inform policy and advocacy change at the national, regional and international level.

Timeframe and/or implementation plan (75 words limit)

Ongoing with partners during the lifetime of the Womankind Worldwide Strategy – 2016 – 2021.

D. Commitments for Women and Girls with Disabilities:

Please enter the exact wording of the commitment/s, including details of others who have supported its development (75 words limit):

We will focus on long-lasting and transformational change in the lives of women with disabilities. We will do this by: supporting diverse and independent women’s movements and feminist action that is inclusive of women with disabilities; taking collective action at international level, including creating platforms for disabled women’s rights activists to advocate for change and advocating for effective implementation of CRPD and CEDAW; and by living our feminist values and taking a disability inclusive approach in all that we do.

Timeframe and/or implementation plan (75 words limit)

Ongoing with partners during the lifetime of the Womankind Worldwide Strategy – 2016 – 2021

Together with women’s movements, and through our partnerships with WROs, we will work towards eliminating VAWG against women with disabilities, helping women with disabilities realise and claim their economic rights and control over resources, and supporting women with disabilities’ equal influence in decision-making and ability to exercise political power. In doing so we will take an intersectional approach to all our work, recognising that women with disabilities face multiple and intersecting discriminations. However, we commit to understanding, researching and documenting their specific experiences of discrimination which are unique and not simply the sum of different discriminations.