Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Thursday, 9 March 2023

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Disability Matters

Self-advocacy and Women with Disabilities: Discussion

Ms Eliona Gjecaj:

There is so much I want to say but I will try to keep to the questions. To pick up on language, we need to frame it in terms of the law. To reiterate, Ireland has ratified the CRPD and we are technically at the implementation or domestication of it into our Constitution. That means the CRPD is an international legal instrument and, therefore, we can and should take the language from the CRPD and use it.

Language is a powerful tool. It does not only stay as law or as a written paragraph in the Constitution, and it is rolls out into the society through its use by Members of Parliament, Ministers, educators and all of society down to its youngest members, with children in kindergarten calling each other “special needs” or calling this or that child “special needs”. That has a negative connotation to it. It tells people nothing about how to accommodate or assist that individual, but rather that these are different, these are the others, and we have to have something different to address these. That should not be the case. More often, people are to be treated the same way, but with other means, with different access and with inclusivity of supports. We need to provide the same chance and opportunities.

I want to also highlight reproductive justice. It is great to see the issue recognised and that the conversation is open and ongoing, but it is a massive topic and it will not do it justice to just talk about it in two minutes. I want to pick up from Ms Kearns and to bring forward the issue of lack of training. That cuts across every aspect of our life, whether it be parenting classes that people attend when expecting a first-born, accessibility of information or accessibility of those classes and other aspects, for example, training with regard to being equal before the law and having equal access to the justice system. There is also the lack of training for those working in shelters and in the justice system, as we know it right now, and for those working in the support services.

I also want to highlight the resistance of certain people or support services in admitting perhaps that times have changed and that, therefore, support services need to evolve with the times. Sometimes people are resistant when we, as disabled people, advocate or speak our minds on how a support service should be and, instead of that being taken as a conversation, it is taken in a defensive way, as if we are criticising. Personally, as an advocate, I see everything as a conversation, as an open platform to improve, whether that be support services, healthcare or otherwise. My point of view is let us talk together, let us consult each other, let us move forward and let us make sure that we provide an inclusive, accessible future in every other policy, in every other law and in every other practice that we do.

In answer to the point made by a committee member, we are not just disabled and we are not just women at a given time. We are disabled women with different gender identities, with different sexual orientations, with different ethnic backgrounds, with different education levels, with different legal status and so forth. Each one of these aspects of our being affects a given application or a given aspect of what we are looking into. For example, I am a disabled woman with a different ethnic background so, sometimes, people I interact with forget the fact I am disabled and that I am a woman, and only focus on the fact I am an immigrant or a migrant, and so forth. The negative connotation between ableism, sexism and also racism come together, and I am falling into the deepest cracks possible – I am using myself as an example to represent many people in my shoes. It is important that language and law reflect those intersectional identities and intersectional aspects of our being and also of our individual needs.

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