ROUGH EDITED COPY

UNITED NATIONS - DIVISION FOR SOCIAL POLICY AND DEVELOPMENTUN-DSPD-ADVANCING THE RIGHTS AND WELL-BEING OF WOMEN AND GIRLS

WITH DISABILITIESSEPTEMBER 16, 2016

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* * * * *This is being provided in a rough-draft format. Communication Access Realtime Translation (CART) is provided in order to facilitate communication accessibility and may not be a totally verbatim record of the proceedings.

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. >> Please take your seat. We are starting in a minute. Can you kindly take your seat, please. Good afternoon. Good afternoon. Um, I with like to start the panel discussion on advancing the rights, well being and partner of women and girls with disabilities in displacement through development and humanitarian responses. Good afternoon. Once again, I'm Akiko Ito, Chief of the Secretariat for the Commission for the Rights of Persons with Disabilities of the division of social policy and development, DESA which is part of Department of Economic and Social Affairs of the UN which is a noble focal point on the UN system on disability.

It is a privilege for me to facilitate this important event, the panel with the mission of Japan, his excellency. And cosponsors in the order of speaking today. We have-- woman's refugee commission, UNICEF, international disability alliance, human rights watch and human women as well as handicapped international ho could not make it here today.

So thank you so much for everyone to come to this event. It is a privilege for me to moderate this panel. As you know, equality is a key principle that cuts across all standards, applied to any international action. Equality between men and women, with and without disability. The goal of the UN in the field of disability in the work of the United Nations is that full and equal participations with personals with disability. This has been the goal of our work. And today's discussion we reflect on this principle and the refugees and migrants. And the subject of women and girls with disabilities in displacement. In their situations as refugees and migrants and how they can be included in humanitarian and development responses.

I just want to give the background before we start. This year, marks the tenth anniversary of the adoption on the convention of the rights of persons with disabilities. This convention is built on many decades of the work of the United Nations. And it promotes action for advancing the rights of persons with disabilities.

But this convention is not about only about persons with disabilities but to create society where persons with or without disabilities can pursue their goals and based on this principle of equality.

And I would also like to say this is the first year of 2013, this is the first year after the adoption of the 2013 development agenda for sustainable development. This offers an unprecedented opportunity to drive lasting changes for the inclusion of persons with disabilities. Of course we're including women with disabilities and girls with disability and make them equal partners and also full participants in global regional, national, and local development and humanitarian action. And we also need to look into the near future more in detail processes, institutions and mechanisms. The community is now seeking an approach to implement the 2013 agenda. This also involves breaking down silos. Breaking down silos. We should breakdown the silos between humanitarian action and economic and social development. This is something that we also learned from the debate that have already taken place in relation towards humanitarian summit this year and the session for the persons with disabilities. And recently in June I recall the humanitarian segment, to reiterate this need to development humanitarian actors to

work together to better respond to the need of persons in displacement as well as to improve outcomes for those in displacement.

So with this in mind and the lead of the height of the meeting on the general assembly next Monday on large movements of refugees and migrants, it's timely for us today to give advisability to the situation of women and girls in dissability and displacement. Other economic situations have impact on those seeking immigration stat us. Women and girls with disability more heightened risks and vulnerabilities as they seek protection. This has been highlighted by also council resolution in 2242 which outline the way forward and provides the opportunities for inclusion with women and girls with disabilities in the work of the council.

The panel today, I'm conscious of time today, the panel today is bringing together actors involved development humanitarian fields. To discuss lessons learns but also forward looking strategies for including women and girls with disabilities in this process from both humanitarian and development perspectives. We also want to learn from our speakers the current efforts to promote empowerment and protection of women and girls from an integrity approach to these responses.

And we would also address the cross sectionalities in other development priorities. And we would like to also-- we hope to have a little bit of time to discuss new initiatives to promote the leadership of women with disabilities and girls with disabilities in in post crisis and past towards development.

Now I would like to introduce the cosponsor, the co-organizer of today's event. And I would like to highlight Japan's leadership and contribution to women empowerment in situation of a crisis and through implementation of the 2030 development agenda. I would like to also note these are-- unistar and government of Japan worked closely together for the UN conference for disaster reduction last year.

To promote disability included disaster reduction. And Japan played a role to ensure that framework is gender sensitive and also inclusive of persons with disabilities. And this resulted in persons of disabilities being recognized as both beneficiary and agents of change in reduction and responses and reconstruction. This, of course, women with disabilities and their leadership in this context of disaster reduction.

It is a great honor for me to introduce, the mission of Japan and I would like to already turn to him for the floor for his statement.

>> Thank you, facilitator. Thank you for your kind introduction. I noticed the biodata and the explanation of this event-- and the-- it is a great pleasure for me to hold this event with the aim of finding solutions to the displacement issue just before the week, high level week which we'll focus on the large movement of migrants. And I'm happy to be here with the stake hold holders here. Ever greater number of people are being forced into displacement in conflicts and natural disasters. Persons with disabilities are disproportionately greater risk than persons without disabilities.

Multiple barriers exist with persons with disabilities to access necessary assistance. For example, some cannot have access to registration offices. And therefore they cannot get the humanitarian assistance. In addition, women and girls with disabilities unfortunately face double burden of barriers. Not only as a result of their disabilities but also the agenda.

Japan has prioritized the protection promotional the rights of persons with disabilities in situations over humanitarian emergencies. Based on the lessons learned from the greater east Japan earthquake and tsunami that happened in March 2011, five years ago. In this regard, Japan worked hard for the framework for disaster risk reduction which emphasizes the role of persons with disabilities as important stakeholders in disaster reduction. In the occasion of the humanitarian summit team made this year, the inclusion on persons with disabilities and humanitarian action was established.

I am convinced it's available-- rights of the persons with disabilities and humanitarian crisis. I also believe that the delivering relief during a crisis is not enough. We need to empower those suffering by listening to their views and the creating of opportunities for them to achieve a better future. It is also important to support the stabilization and development of society for benefits of all persons. So this notion, the protection and the empowerment, is-- and these are the core values of the human security, it's the notion that my country has been advocating. And the people should be placed at the center of the activities and so on. And the-- from the top level, the people should be protected. But on the other hand from the bottom level, the people should be empowered. So that is the notion of the human security.

Last year we adopted the 2030 agenda for SDG. This to 30 agenda is emphasizing that we must not leave no one behind. It's the human center approach. It's quite common on the common with the human security. In order to realize this agenda, 2030 agenda, we must not only respect fundamental rights of the people. Including women and girls with disabilities but also strengthening our efforts to promote their participation in society. We welcome the New York declaration for refugees and migrants which will be adopted on UN summit next week. Stresses the importance of addressing the drivers and causes of large movements of refugees and migrants and seeks to improve by strengthening the human development nexus.

Taking this opportunity in collaboration, Japan has been implementing assistance focused on the-- nine countries, including, Turkey, Uganda, by providing the total of about $100 million for refugees.

Japan is fully committed to achieving this realizing an equal and exclusive society and respecting the rights of persons with disabilities. So today we have a lot of experts from various fields including humanitarian assistance, disability agenda empowerment. By listening to these experts and through the very honest discussion, we can identify the needs of women and girls with disabilities. And we can find more effective ways to support them. So I hope I sincerely hope that this meeting will be very beneficial and it will contribute to the empowerment of women and girls with disabilities. I thank you very much.

>> Thank you very much. Ambassador for sharing with us the commitment and also current action by the government of Japan to strengthen agenda-- empower women and girls disability. Now I would like to turn to global leader with disabilities, Ms. Dina. Maybe I'm not pronouncing it--

>> sorry that I mispronounced your name. She's the Secretary-General of-- she's a global leader who has tirelessly worked for women with disabilities development for decades. Including women and girls with disabilities in situation of crisis. Her leadership on a global level has set a high standard for all of us. For those who wish to be mart of that advance the of women and girls with disabilities worldwide. And I would like to turn to her for your remark, for her remarks to initiate the panel discussion today.

>> Thank you very much. I thank the organizers for this event for the opportunity to speak today. Let me also bring to you greetings from my organization rehabilitation international which is I global network of organizations working in disability and rehabilitation for 94 years since its inception in 19122.

IR takes pride in the fact that it has been one of the organizations that pioneered the initiative to create awareness to pay special attention in the multiple difficulties and challenges faced by persons with disabilities in general, and women and girls with disabilities in particular in cases of emergency and crisis situation.

Through a collaborative effort it was undertaken with the nip on of Japan, instrumental in holding the regional conference in mainstreaming disability in disaster management held in Bangkok Thailand in June 2014. The conference has highlighted reduction planning and emergency response and the need 0 consider the gender perspective in such initiative. Since then we all know there has been higher awareness and greater resolve not just to recognize but address the needs of people with disability, particularly women and girls in emergency and crisis situation. Why this needs to be done is not only because it is a responsibility and a moral obligation for all concerned, but more importantly because the number of persons with disabilities in crisis situations or humanitarian emergencies is staggering and no longer be ignored.

what do the numbers say? 8 million or more of the world arms estimated more than 50 million people displaced by conflicts have disabilities. They are among the biggest subgroup of people who suffer the most in view of not being able to access services, negative attitudes and biases. Further emergency such as disasters and conflicts present a number of unique challenges that are specific to women with disabilities.

There is no short an on the fails of hardship faced by women with disabilities in refugee camps and evacuation centers in cases of disasters both natural and manmade. A few years ago I met a woman in the district, southern part of Sierra Leon about eight hours drive from the country's capital. Her name as Abba. She was then 16 years old, a rape victim and was six months pregnant at the time I met her. Add to that she was mobility impaired having contracted polio as a child. She and one distant relatives were displaced by internal conflict. They lived in a makeshift tent. When food was rationed, she was last to get her share. She had to crawl to the front who did not care to help her even if they saw her situation. In cases like that. Some people would think about would give help to a pregnant disabled women who required assistance and understanding and appreciation much the extreme difficulties she has faced.

If getting food was a challenge, using the makeshift toilets and bathrooms if you can call it that, was even more challenging for Abba. She said she controlled her food and water intake so she doesn't have to use the bathroom more than twice a day. Once a daytime when her relative would carry her to the bathroom and another in the night when most of the people are asleep and would not be inconvenienced by her crawling to the bathroom where she would need to climb a couple or more steps to relieve herself.

But she was pregnant. So it took a great deal of determination and resolve not to use the bathroom as often with her condition. You can only imagine how difficult it must have been for her.

Ab, a story is one of the many tales of the kind of suffering women with disabilities have to endure when plucked out of their homes and communities to live in camps as a result of humanitarian crisis. It opens our eyes to the fact that no one size fits all in terms of facilities and services that are made available for general populations in camps. Problems often arise when emergency response workers lack the training and understanding of disability including safe and respectful approaches to assisting women with disabilities and girls with disabilities during evacuation and accessing services.

due to his tore I can experience of marginalization and discrimination many women with disabilities do not realize that they have the right to access emergency services and aids just like everybody else. They often lack confidence to speak up for themselves and articulate their needs. Often than not, they keep silent and left out when supplies are provided. Many women with disabilities are very rec luck inhabitant to speak about their unique and specific needs when in mixed groups of men and women. Their needs may not be medicines or assistive aids and devices. They may have private and sensitive and for hygienic items which we all know is the flexible tube that we I know certificate into the body cavity particularly the bladder to remove fluid. As we are aware, many contract dictions in the course of their lives I often they are subjected to multiple discrimination, stereotype on the mind set they are weak and cannot be rivetted with men and boys with disabilities and nondisabled women are cape an of doing. Rarely-- opportunity to decide for themselves. The cruel labeling of women with disabilities are additional stumbling blocks to the ability to express they want selves. Being subjected to the additional challenge of living in refugee camps, left to take care of themselves most of the time, leave women with disabilities with few options but to embrace their untold suffering.

Acceptance of their difficulties as a coping mechanism, how much, does not mean they are inability to provide inputs in identifying solutions what challenges they face. When dealing with the issue of finding solutions for challenges unique to women with disabilities, it may help a great deal to consider that displaced women with disabilities are the experts of their own situation. Most often than not they have the knowledge on how to address their specific needs but are shy to say so. It is amounts wise to ask their suggestions and recommendations on how to identify solutions to their issues. For all you know they can be an untapped resource in identifying solution to address their unique and specific needs and challenges.

Communication is the vital step towards reaching out and seeking solutions the needs of women with disabilities. Learning from experience, they have many of the

answers needed. You don't have to reinvent the wheel. People working with them just need to reach out, show trust and confidence in the ability of women with disabilities to contribute solutions to address the challenges that they face. We must ensure the people we have regular contacts with women with disabilities in camps and evacuation centers are equipped with the knowledge of disability and issues relating specifically to women with disabilities.

On many instances, even women themselves do not understand women with disabilities which often perpetuates discrimination. Questions such as how is she able to manage herself in a camp when she has her period? These are extremely offensive no matter how relatively or naively it's said. Training needs to be provided to acquire appropriate tools to be able to effectively relate to women with disabilities under this difficult circumstances.

And it goes without saying that a woman with a disability must be among the trainers or resource persons to impart the required knowledge and understanding to those who work in evacuation centers and refugee cam manies and that is for very obvious reasons.

Having said that all, I ends my presentation by saying, that even situations of crisis and emergencies should not stand in the way of not just respecting but realizing the rights of women with disabilities by breaking longstanding traditional beliefs, misconceptions and discriminatory practices. In such situations, those involved in humanitarian response are expected to set the example so that others affected by the crisis situations and humanitarian tragedies realize that women and girls with disabilities have as much right to be treated with dignity and respect as any other person in this facilities. Thank you very much. [applause]

>> Thank you very much for sharing with us from your own experience from experience of being the voice from the ground to this kind of discussion because what you have described is something that we need to tackle. And it's something what we need to understand and we also need to identify specific action, practical action to address those urgent and immediate needs for, especially for those who are in displacement and crisis situations. Thank you. Thank you very much.

Now, I would like to enter our panelist today. The dialogue we are about to begin as I said, should be action oriented. And each speaker, I think is going to use 5 minutes to discuss the following three key points.

One, what action are you taking now to include women and girls with disabilities? Their well being and perspective in humanitarian action and development responses?

#2, what are the obstacle and barriers in your efforts to take actions toward inclusion? #3 what are the next step or action under your leadership or organization. What future actions are needed to contribute to the situation to improving the situation of women and girls with disabilities who are refugees and migrants in crisis situation? Due to time constraints, please make sure that you do not discuss your work in general but focus on these three points. We really appreciate your cooperation.

So we are going to start now with the first panelist, Ms. Emma, Senior-- special limit.

>> Thank you very much for the introduction and we appreciate the share. Girls with disabilities around the world. The women's refugee commission works to improve the rights and protect the rights of women and children displaced by crisis and conflict including girls with disability. We research-- strengthen their resilience and also to change humanitarian practice.

Over and over we see that human you'll crisis and the subsequent displacement results in enormous risk to women and girls in the form of rape, assault, violence, early marriage-- as we heard, there are various barriers that women and girls-- type of violence and abuse. The WIC has found, one of the biggest barriers is stigma and discrimination. This leads humanitarian actors to refer these women and girls to programs or persons with disabilities, overlooking the needs that they might have relating to the agenda. Their needs as women and girls.

The same negative attitude has meant the skills, capacities and potential of women and girls with disabilities are overlook the and the whole community misses out on the valuable contribution they can make which is linked to development in many of these countries where there are displacement situations. The WIC is committed to identifying and documenting positive practices to inconclusion of women with disabilities in our program. Whether it be agenda based, women's empowerment initiative or programs for adolescence and youth. Women and girls with-- and there are some common messages that we hear from women and girls with disabilities.

I'm going to share with you three things that need to be happen. First we need human you'll actors and the partners to recognize them as women and girls, prioritize them for programs including economic strengthening. And this might involve setting targets, outreach to this group and invite them. You'll be surprised, adaptation are required. Refugee--after being invited to a village savings and loans program. I was excited to register, to be included to have a chance to prove myself. All they needed was the invitation.

Secondly we need to strengthen accountability across the human system. Here we have a roll to play. There are guidelines to improve-- you'll hear about more those from the colleagues. These are agenda sensitive and issues of women and girls with disabilities across all sectors. And during the government level we can establish indicators against partner organizations mist monitor and report. At a community level many we can facilitate the community and groups-- call for their equal representation women's associations or disability associations that are so often established in displacement context and play a critical role in decision making among these communities.

Lastly, I'm going to spends a bit time on this one. We need to recognize and-- women and girls experience globally on the basis of disability and agenda and how this is linked to development and humanitarian crisis. 86% of the world's refugees are actually living in developing countries. Humanitarian crisis hinder our efforts to build inclusive communities and promote gender equality. Diss place is also important. A women's rights and a disability rights issue. I want to share with you a vital approach we're prioritizing in our work with displaced women and girls with disability which cross these sectors and it's increasing supports for women with disabilities in crisis affected country.

National and local women can make a critical contribution, a life-- they can raise awareness of disability issues with traditional humanitarian actors. They can provide technical support and provide-- by supporting local women's-- VPO by supporting these VPO in crisis from countries to engage with displaced population, we are strengthening their networks for human rights monitoring and capacity to contribute to development program.

That's what we're pushing for, for humanitarian development-- to increase-- effectiveness so they have the capacity to respond to crisis.

We are advocating for the disability and women's rights movement and organizations involve to increase capacity building program and support for women's VPO in crisis countries. We want to seek technical advice for these women. And provide capacity building in humanitarian issues they may be less familiar with.

Lastly we want to see UN agencies recruit women with disabilities in their own staff and volunteers in these communities which is a common approach in humanitarian context. You can read about some of the great works of these organizations of women with disabilities in our latest report which I have copy in the room. But for now I'll finish with a message from Nina who runs the VPO in DRC which is responding to the needs of disabled. Get to know us not just justice victims but women working to improve our future. Thank you.

>> [applause]

>> Thank you very much for sharing with us the work about a women's refugee commission. At the same time, helping us to understand how we can operationalize into sectionality among the disability gender and human reaction. And giving us a list of this practical action we need to address at this time. Thank you so much. Now I would like to move onto my colleague, Mr. --. program specialist, student with disabilities at UNICEF. please take the floor.

>> Very good afternoon, everybody. Let me start with a small video, a short video. I'll take little more than two minutes. After that-- and because it's a powerful one.

>> ( Showing video )

>> We need to do much more and much better for millions of girls, children, with disabilities like Saja. Just this morning I was speaking to my colleague from Damascus and she telling me how complex the situation is. As a person with disability, she is saying how she has taken, used disability as an opportunity. UNICEF is starting a program targeting about of thousand 700 children with disabilities in Syria this month. Starting in-- and-- addressing both displaced persons and local populations.

The complexity we're talking about complexities. So the children of disability we had two months back, the program was designed when we went to the communities last week many of these children, the families have moved. So we got to find out which we can adapt, adjust, innovate, be nimble and be ready to be responding to these very, very difficult and fluid situation.

At the same time, my colleague was telling me that, previously when I was-- I'd like to introduce a program, if you do it for displaced population, there's a complaint for most population. If it's for female household, there are complications. She said, okay, children with disabilities, and there was no opposition. She said I'm using children with disabilities to do-- and then expand it. So there are opportunities. Children with disabilities aren't always the most difficult ones to reach. They, they are difficult because we have not cared for so many years. But addressing issues of girls with disabilities, children with disabilities provides us with opportunities in the field.

Akiko was mentioning the interaction sections with-- if you tune in the dimension,-- gets even more complex. If you're a child, a girl with a disability in a humanitarian context, life can be and is it-- extremely difficult. At UNICEF released a report on the ongoing crisis for refugees and children with disabilities. I define the ever important issue of data, the lack of data and how we need to strengthen our data have data collection mechanisms to respond to the changing needs of our time. After a lot of work, in UNICEF collaboration with the Washington group, we have just finalized the child functioning module which will be added to our house old survey called the mix. And we home that it will significantly strengthen data on children with disabilities.

In situations like this, UNICEF has school in a box, literally in a box, education recreation kits. Last two years we have been working on that, finding that assess accessible and started working on the components so it can be used to include children with disabilities. Kids have been September to humanitarian context in the last seven months alone. And all these kids now go with the practical guide on how to include children with disabilities. These are small steps. But we hope working with all of you, no one can do it alone, that we'll be able to make a difference.

I want to talk about the interagency standing, the community guidelines that a lot of us in this room are working on and we feel have the potential to significantly alter the practice and the humanitarian context of including children with disability.

You mentioned, we are talking about 8, 9 million persons with disabilities who are currently facing displacement. Huge numbers. If we cannot work together, we cannot reach this population, we cannot even reach a fraction of this population. So far we do not have systemwide guidelines, any systemwide standards on inclusion of persons with disabilities in humanitarian context. Based on the humanitarian summit disability charter which my colleague dominique will speak on, we have been able to get significant amount of what's political and technical will in this area. The persons with disabilities which was launched-- system ID24 guidelines as one of the key components. And the systemic committee has endorsed the establishment of a task team to double up guidelines and inclusion of persons with disabilities in humanitarian action. Many of us in this room are working on it. The task team has been formed.

We are going through the details to streamline it, category it. We have a significant number of agencies who have volunteered to be a part of the task team to take it forward. We have an opening workshop in Geneva on the sixth of October which I'm sure many of us will get together and discuss how to structure our guidelines forward. We need resources of course to discuss or to develop and test the guidelines, to take it to the field and to actually ensure that these tools we develop are relevant and make sense and are actually with people with disabilities on the groundwork.

All of you have motioned about participation. It's the cornerstones of the WSS charter as well we like to be of the ISC guideline. Participation is key and we cannot let the expertise of persons with disability to go wasted as it has been for so many years.

And we expect that if all of us working together will be able to come out with a really practical, strong guidelines on inclusion of persons with disability which will bring not only accountability of actors but enable humanitarian actors, persons with disabilities, organizations with persons of with disability to come together to work towards a common goal to change practice and strengthen the inclusion of girls, women, boys, and men with disabilities around the world in humanitarian context. With that I'll hand the floor back to you. I'm happy to answer any questions later. Thank you so much.

>> [applause]

>> Thank you very much. Thank you very much for bringing with a strength and expertise of UNICEF the voice from the ground. And also very specific ongoing efforts which is also interagency wide effort and also efforts that causes development humanitarian and also human rights. You know this is important efforts that he mentioned should really take forms, very soon. And so that we can actually make practical changes through this assist guidelines. Thank you very much.

Now I would like to turn to Ms. Georgia dominique from international disability alliance. And the floor is yours.

>> I will keep it brief because I can that the time is ticking. I want to cover a couple of key points. One of the questions was what are you doing? And I thought I'd bring a short information on our international advocacy. You will have heard from the others that we were engaged in the world humanitarian summit and the drafting of inclusion of persons with disabilities. And for Ida and our members, this drafting process taught us an important less not. I won't go into details unnecessarily but I encourage you to read it. Humanitarian disability charter.org. But the on we learned is that we can't work in silos to address the issues. As, you know, we know that VPOs we have expertise on how to address certain barriers whether they're attitude, physical, communicational. But we don't necessarily have the knowledge of how to address those barriers within the humanitarian context. And likewise, humanitarian actors, they have the knowledge of humanitarian action how to implement that but they don't necessarily know how to address those areas for persons with disabilities.

And so it seems very obvious and very simple but this is a very big outcome for us as the international disability lines, we realized that we have to work together and we need to build bridges and conversations between humanitarian organizations and actors and VPOs on the ground. It was great to hear Emma speak about that.

A second piece of work that we are doing that was mentioned was the IFC task team which will develop the guidelines. And I think what is really important there for us is that, the concept of participation of much persons with disabilities has been recognized very strongly. And that is we, as our work is focused on raising the importance of equal participation of persons with disabilities and decision making process that impact our lives, the ISC task team the way it's formulated has a co-chairing agreement between Ida as a VPO UNICEF agency and handicapped

international as a humanitarian organizations. And that was really a very strong step forward in terms of partnerships moving forward and the recognition of the role that DPOs need to play. From moving on and looking at next steps and again with an international advocacy perspective, what can we do from here? I think there are some very simple steps that we can take even here within the UN and in the next couple of months during the negotiations on the resolutions. As has been mentioned, we need more data. That is something that we, you know, we have to have so that we can develop policies that actually respond to the situation on the ground with persons with disabilities.

And we can do that by viewing disability as a cross cutting issue. When we're talking about language, when we're requesting the segregation of data, we can request the segregation by agenda, by age, and by disability status. That is something very simple that we can do right now. We can also request information from the security council country mission, from UN country teams on situations of persons with disabilities and projects they're working on. And another way would be also, I was recently representing persons with disabilities on the civil society committee that nominated a list of people, civil society speakers for the high level meeting on migrants and refugees hatching next week. I know women's refugee commission are also on that. We need to make sure that our representatives and also that we're working together to ensure that persons with disabilities are being nominated to speak at these events, that they're aware of what's going on. And that's been hinted before. I can temperature you from a list of 500 applications that the civil society group received we had only two applications of persons with disabilities. And you know, what that has meant is that, at the ends of the day, persons with disabilities will not be represented in the high level meeting next week. I mean, the issues will be addressed we hope. But we can-- I think we can work together on that, to make sure that that happens. And finally, I think, this has been mentioned before, just making sure that persons with disabilities are at the table. The motto of the disability communities is nothing about us without us. I would say the I know formal motto, we're ready to work with you. Please use us. I think that that is really the best way forward from here. Thank you.? [applause]

>> Thank you very much miss Georgia dominique. And also sharing with us with the organization's current efforts to include disability in this emerging humanitarian walk that we do together. And I also was very much, very much impressed to how this international disability advocacy, that perspective is now being applied to so many different issues. Because humanitarian action, it takes-- there are so many dimensions. But I think this perspective, this advocacy is a crucial contribution to open up the discussion like what we're doing now. Okay. Thank you very much.

So I would like now to move onto Ms.-- disability rights researcher at human rights watch. I'm sorry. I'm not doing just to your name. Sorry.

>> Good afternoon, everyone. I'm honored to be here today. I'm from human rights watch. My name-- I work as a disability rights-- sorry. Okay. Can you hear me all now? So my name is --. I work as a disability rights, human rights watch. Just to give a brief introduction, the human rights watch is an international, nongovernmental organization doing research and advocacy on human rights. And we have also division that's particularly committed to doing research and advocacy on the rights of people with disabilities. Lately one of our priorities has been the-- CRPD and doing research.

CRPO-- people with disabilities who are in a conflict situation are or refugees. Particularly what we have done research on is-- conflict up here. But also what's happening in refugee camps and other camps with people if disabilities have access to food and assistance. We have published reports on Jordan and Lebanon for Syrian refugee children, including with children with disabilities. I was hoping to share here today is about a 14-year-old girl from central Africa republic that we met in 2014.

She her name is-- and she has polio. So when rebels attacked the village where she lived, she could not run and escape. She had an older brother who tried to bring her to safety by literally putting her on his back and carrying letter. At one point he got exhausted. And she told him, I'm quoting him. Put me down and save yourself. He did. And he told her that he would come back to save her in case he survived. Her brother never returned. She was left alone abandoned by the river for two weeks. Then the fighters, they found her. They saw she could not move without assistance. What they said was, we have found an animal. Let's finish it off. Luckily a female fighter saved her life. Throughout central Africa republic we have met repeatedly met people with disabilities who have been left behind when conflict occurred. It did not show any kind of mercy to those abandoned, killing them on the spot. At times the killer showed extreme cruelty with women with disabilities. One young pregnant woman with disability was thrown alive by the fire-- and suffered a horrible death. But even when people do reach camps-- find refugee and safety, their basic needs are not addressed. The cams do not have toilets that are accessible to them. And they meet people who had to crawl on the ground to access toilet. In some cases they could not even use toilets.

So my colleague she met a 34-year-old women from Syria who uses a wheelchair. They have difficulties and challenges of a woman who uses a wheelchair and who has her period and she can't access a toilet. She said-- she was embarrassed. She said she hadn't been able to wash herself for over a month. So she said, ten days ago, I got my period and I swear to God, I still haven't had a shower.

So being a woman and being a refugee is a challenge for everyone. Being a woman who uses a wheelchair is more of a challenge. The second story I want to share to keep in mind is the access to social support for women with social disabilities.

We match 15 young women and girls who had escaped ISIS. All of these women, was held in sexual slavery by ISIS members. They were raped multiple times. According to eleven mental healthcare provides, most of these women who escaped ISIS abductions show signs of traumatic disorder and other mental condition. Only one woman of 15 had access to the much needed mental healthcare and support although all the women interviewed did tell us the problem of insomnia, anxiety and depression. One 19-year-old woman who was held in captivity as well, told us-- I would go to a psychologist if one was able.

What needs to be done? First we have to ensure that response in crisis and during displacement does not discriminate against women with disabilities. One way of doing that is clear. By ensure the physical environment is accessible to women with disabilities and for girls with disabilities. But also as we mentioned some of the panels mentioned earlier, sometimes women and girls with disabilities don't have access to information and do not know they have access to rights and as a in a camp. So they

should ensure that information about camp services such as medical care and food distribution are accessible to women with disabilities.

First and foremost what we need to do is include women and girls with disabilities in our funding appeals and provide support to make sure their rights are addressed. We need to ensure their participation. That is something other panelists talked about today. Women and girls with disabilities-- humanitarian an response. Humanitarian organizations should draw up on their leadership skills experience and capabilities.

One way of doing that-- that's something-- I've been to many camps. I've lived in one myself when I was a child. And I have never seen a woman with disability to be appointed to management.-- and some thing-- already said by international disability alliance -- the collective data that exists today is-- it's also --. that's what's going to help us to make sure their needs are in humanitarian response.

A final point that I want to share today with all of you is currently-- we're working with and been in touch with humanitarian organization working in Greece. We send them a simple lecture and email and ask if they can talk about the disabilities in Greece. It's interesting in each single response I would get from international humanitarian organizations working in Greece, they don't have anything specific to fell you about people with disabilities, they're our priorities. It managed to include people with disabilities in their work. But we-- it's still not the case. Thank you so much.

>> Thank you very much. [applause]

>> Thank you for sharing us with, actually your research and your direct experience with those who are on the ground and who actually require humanitarian assistance. And then you also made reference to some of the issues that we tend to overlook in recommendation to including women with disabilities. And you also gave us the specific recommendation of putting a woman with disability in charge which could also change. But also-- in relation to those organizations, national, regional organizations humanitarian field to be more aware, to be sensitive in terms of disability stands point. Thank you very much.

Now I would like to-- now I would like to have a few interventions. Ms.-- I would now like to ask-- of Finland to make a short remark.

>> Thank you. Thank you, chair and thank you panelists for your powerful statement. I feel good that a couple of months after the summit we are progressing with disability. It has to be one of the priorities for Finland in the whole process of the world humanitarian summit. And I think that formulating was made in the spirit of the summit, very inclusive and I hope it-- we will have more stakeholders to align with the process, with the task team and the coming steps.

We will definitely support the process of the global standards and like you all said concrete steps that are already made. One of the projects we have is with the women's refugee, commission and UNHCR that--women with disabilities and that kind of projects are important to share what we can find with the whole humanitarian community and take the lessons learned forward. And one of the priorities of government resolves are

the new technologies. And we are trying to find new innovative solutions to be applied in the field of humanitarian work and helping persons with disabilities in emergencies.

And in the coming days, in the high level event and other events in the high level, Finland will keep this issue on the agenda. And we hope to hear the commitments from other member states and stakeholders as well. Thank you.

>> Thank you very much for sharing with us the commitment of finance lapped. Now I would like to ask miss Elizabeth who is a UN woman-- now to continue to work in this field.

>> Thank you for inviting me to speak here today. Thank you to Japan for hosting. I'm going to try not to repeat what other people have said. And so forgive me if I jump around a little bit from the notes I made. Regarding the WHS, I think we're pleased and in large part thanks to Finland. I don't know if Australia is here. A strong leadership special session. Right? I can't remember the title anymore was on-- the charter came out from that. I said this before so this is not going to be a surprise for anybody. One shortcoming that I see in the charter is that when it discusses women, and women's group, they talk about them being vulnerable. Of course, I'm going to highlight that as we heard today that women and girls are at greater risk for gender based-- we want to talk as speakers have said about the capabilities and the capacity that women and girls with disabilities have that we don't just see them as, you know, we don't-- we don't see them as vulnerable groups only.

But then that's not unique to the charter. This is an issue that we are constantly facing, that women constantly face as a group and girl, and obviously as we've been discussing if you bring the disabilities in, it increases again. On the disabilities point, I think the colleague from human rights started to bring this up. We've been focusing today on our examples on women and girls with physical disabilities.

I mean, in typical populations you're likely to have a disability increases with age. In conflict affected areas that physical disability start increasing. That was a fabulous video, I hope you use that a lot.

But mental health issues, I can't believe that they're not more predominant than they are. We don't have great statistics on it, we suffer from lack of psychologists in developed countries. Think whether you're in a disaster or conflict affected zone. There's nothing out there. I give credit to UNICEF for the art in the box tool so that children have an outlet. There are a number of agencies and NGO working on this programs. But we need to do more. I want to highlight the commitments made by people around this table on this issue. Some member states committed to increasing funding for groups of women with disabilities to engage in humanitarian action. Other agencies said they were going to ensure data is segregated by sex, age-- they would increase the capacity of humanitarian staff to implement programming for women with disabilities and also to be able to mainstream disability inclusion in their work and there were some, I think Finland actually, said that they were going to continue to advocacy on this issue.

What-- I think like we all said, I'm not sheer to have all the answers. This is an issue that we identified we need to do work on. We humanitarian action, is a growing

area for women. And this is one of our focuses within it. What do we do on an international global normative level? We put lots of resources into the world humanitarian summit to bring this issue. We raised it the SDGs. If you look at the presidential statement from the open debate on security in 2014 on women and girls who are refugees and displaced, we definitely helped support references to women and girls with disabilities in there. I also like to, because I do think it serves a gold standard for language on women and girls national disasters. Japan has the resolution, and you absolutely discussed the specific needs and capabilities of women and girls with disabilities in there.

So that is terrific language if you need to quote someone in another document. I go back to it a lot. Another UN women-- UN women working at a global level and on the ground, we also support the UN-- the project we support is one we think is cool and it was what Emma was speaking about, supporting DPO, groups of women with disabilities to help increase their capacity empower them and reach out to refugee and displaced women and girls with disabilities. So you end up seeing the incredible network formed. You're not only empowering them but empowering the women and girls with disabilities displaced.

I'm being slightly inarticulate at this point. We'll bring them up for CSW again maybe, it's amazing speaker when you see the power that they're creating network, they feel like they have voices for the first time. And last important thing I want to say is, this camp in Jordan, we work to make sure women and girls with disabilities can access the oasis centers. And just making sure again like treating them like they're women and girls because they are. And so not looking at them as this like, you know, special, vulnerable group, making sure they're included in everything that we do. Thanks.

>> Thank you very much in sharing with us-- also continuing to play extremely important role in the discussion that we have today. And the last intervention will be from the private sector. I think-- there's a very important role that private sector plays in this whole discussion.

And I think-- we are pleased to have Ms.-- who is a representative of private sector and who is Turkey and who supported humanitarian summit. She's going to share with us her perspective on our subject today.

>> Thank you. Thank you. And it was an horror to hear everybody here. First of all I would like to tell you about what I do a little bit. I connect to agencies with a public, private agency and NGO in had Turkey. It's the issue that we are facing right now which are women, which are disability people, which are facing our world right now.

I'm proud to say, introduced women's rights-- as earlier as 1930s. He did a lot. But it's not enough. We are trying to struggle the emerging country. We-- I will not go into details about-- because I don't want to take too much of your time. I'm reading from my notes. This-- assigned for a woman in modern community is economic, fending on their husbands. For discussion of equality of women and men is simply not policy. Nevertheless of-- economic life is increasing --. it's not enough. If we can round up figures, at million in people are emerging-- these numbers, 31 million are actively working and 28 million people stay at home. And 30% of the current workforce is

women only. Only 30% of the women work from these numbers and 75% just stays home, nothing much.

Many people think that-- can solve the issue regarding the equality of women and men in countries such as ours. NGO, public, and private sectors do a lot, but not enough, never enough. We think radical steps should be taken. Such as a law should be adopted that number of female and male employees are at least equal in the workplace. Education is a must. In developed countries there-- but unfortunately they're a number of people in our apartment of the world who do not send their daughters to school.

Current government is taking certain progress steps in this way. What they do and they raise education to eight years, which is a huge step. Private sector has considered CSR projects and substantial resources for them. They also support NGOs closely. I worked for a company previously, sending thousands of girls to school. Government provides incentives as well. More than one million dollars continue their education. If every other country, Turkey has been maintaining social welfare policies for people in need.

The number of people-- benefits is more than 3 million. And these benefits are given to women in the family. This practice enabled women to raise her head high within the family and-- this is definitely a creative incentive.

With regard to disabled people, my opinion is not to distinguish between men and women when we talk about disability. The solution is the same. Society still tackling the problem on high employment rate cannot make disabled people comfortable. Since we don't have such support, we can only limited opportunities to make disabled people protective.

Certain steps have been taken but not enough. My experience is, disabled people in Turkey generally stay to themselves, have the feeling that society may find them strange. We should work more diligently to raise the awareness of the public on this matter. We can foresee that disabled people will go out of their --. persons with disability in December-- we will be here to raise our voice and talk about Goodwill. We would not unearthed if you come.

Regarding the refugees, the ongoing war in Syria and Iraq can produce-- deepen the world's view on refugees. The developed countries-- disturb their own social environment.

In this-- and in my home in Istanbul, every day a see a refugee woman with their children, on their arms, holding their skirt, just asking for money, food, help, anything; and I sense the-- in their eyes. And we have to work with these people. Thank you for listening to me.

>> [applause]

>> thank you very much. It is also important for the private sector to be able to be at the discussion table so that we can look at potential partnerships. And I think in

Turkey as I learned from the organization that there are a number of partnerships that are working to address the urgent need of migrants and refugees at this time.

>> Please come to me. Please let me know about-- we need-- in your unit so I can bring the companies together with you.

>> Thank you very much. So now we have come to that, the final point of this panel discussion. And I would like to thank on behalf of the co-organizers for your participation and subscription. It is clear that we need to take an integrity approach to addressing the urgent need of woman and girls with disabilities, refer jeez and migrants in crisis situations.

even this past hour and a half that we are listening to our speakers, we feel that it's not just one group or one humanitarian group or United Nations office or one organization that represented again, you know, women's, women and girls in a conflict humanitarian action. We do need to come together to seek solutions that are practical that we can put into action quickly.

But at the same time, I think the kind of work that we do for the normative area is something that we need to strengthen and we need to build in relation to what we already achieved at the humanitarian summit. But there are many other again supporting nominative instruments that could be born out of what we are working on. For example, this ISC guidelines would be an important instrument that could further, the goal that we all share. But at the time, we need to look into the different possibilities and that we have at the United Nations on the ground and in respective agencies. And I hope to bring together, we hope to bring together-- next time for our continuing discussion to take to really understand what it means to operationalize and take an approach to address the urge enter situation and needs of women and girls in humanitarian in crisis situations. Thank you very much for your participation.