Women with disabilities: Web portal launched to highlight issues

It will facilitate efforts of both, women with disabilities and DPOs through capacity-building.

ISLAMABAD:

A web portal aimed at empowering women with disabilities and advocating for their rights was launched on Thursday.

The website — launched by the National Forum of Women with Disabilities in collaboration with international donor agencies and the Pakistan government --- will provide all sorts of information regarding current engagements, activities and movement of disabled women in the country. It will facilitate the efforts of both, women with disabilities and disability-oriented organisations (DPOs) through capacity-building.

An official working with the Directorate of Special Education and Social Welfare said the launch of the website was a good step in terms of empowering women with disabilities in a country like Pakistan where even a normal woman was not empowered enough to raise her voice.

The official said that although Pakistan was a signatory to many international treaties regarding empowering women with disabilities, no tangible steps have so far been taken on ground to delegate them power.

“In Pakistan, even women with disabilities living in urban areas are deprived of their basic rights to education and health, what to talk of the ones living in rural areas, where their disability is [superstitiously] considered a curse and the result of sin,” said the official.

National Forum of Women with Disabilities Founder Abia Akram said that by launching the first ever web portal, the forum has attempted to help enhance to raise awareness among UN agencies, government departments, NGOs and INGO about the rights of women with disabilities.

She said that the systematic exclusion of persons with disabilities in general and women with disabilities in particular from the rest of the society was the key factor behind launching the networking.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 13^th, 2013.