“Advancing the Rights of Women and Children with Disabilities: Building Bridges Between and Across Human Rights Communities”

Seminar organized under the aegis of the

Asia Cause Lawyer Network

Mumbai; May 21, 2009

The Lawyers Collective (Women’s Rights Initiative) as the Secretariat of the Asia Cause Lawyer Network is organizing a seminar on the rights of women and children with disabilities. The seminar hopes to provide a platform for mainstreaming the concerns of the women with disabilities within the general human rights mechanisms and litigation practices, without losing sight of the gender and disability specific needs of the women with disabilities. The seminar shall focus on women and disability rights in India in particular, and present model approaches adopted in Nepal, Bangladesh and Cambodia on the subject. At the end of the seminar, based on the discussion and model approaches analyzed, an action plan and a working group consisting of feminists scholars, lawyers, academics and activists present in the seminar shall be created. The seminar hopes to formulate a methodology to tackle common issues/hindrances collectively and mainstream women’s disability rights into the women’s rights and human rights advocacy. This would include encouraging countries to ratify the new United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, and frame national legislation. The other major outcome expected from this seminar is to enable the participants to address the rights of women with disabilities in their general human rights litigation and advocacy in an effective manner.

Venue: The Ambassador

V.N.Road, Churchgate,

Mumbai-400020

India

Contact Person: Sonal Makhija/Saptarshi Mandal

Mobile: 09871909280/09811749137