Promoting the political participation of women with disabilities

According to the World Health Organization, there are approximately one billion persons with disabilities worldwide. This amounts to some 15 per cent of the population, half of them women. At the same time, persons with disabilities remain largely under-represented in democratic structures and national parliaments across the OSCE region. Among those elected and appointed, even fewer are women with disabilities.

Organized by the OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR), the conference will serve as a platform to raise awareness about the limited participation of women with disabilities in political life across the OSCE region and to identify positive measures that can facilitate more diverse and inclusive democratic institutions and parliaments. It will explore ways to strengthen linkages between groups working for the rights and participation of women and those of persons with disabilities.

The event will be attended by prominent activists in the field of disability rights and gender equality, delegations of OSCE participating States, politicians with and without disabilities, representatives of disabled people’s organizations and experts from other international organizations.

English/Russian, text-to-speech and International Sign language interpretation will be provided during the event. The draft agenda of the event is available here.

For further information, please click here.