Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees
Tuesday, 2 July 2019
Joint Oireachtas Committee on Foreign Affairs and Trade, and Defence
Disability Inclusion and International Development Issues: Discussion
Ms Fatoumata Diouf:
On the point about women with disabilities, they have a double vulnerability. They are vulnerable because they are women and because they have a disability, which makes it twice as hard for them. What we have done through our programmes is ensure we create gender balance within the disabled people's organisations. The historical context is that the organisations were mainly dominated by males. We have ensured there are women's bodies within the disabled people's organisations, DPOs, that we are strengthening to raise their capacities and training to be able to fight for themselves in order to have access to education and economic empowerment and to be able to advocate for women's rights, specifically, disabled women's rights.