Judy Heumann

Judy spoke with Abia Akram, an activist from Pakistan, at the Equal World campaign’s side event for the Global Disability Summit 2022. In their conversation, they spoke about the impact of the pandemic on people with disabilities, the changing nature of the disability community and the role of women in the movement.

Abia: Thank you so much for coming and giving us this opportunity. It’s such an honour for us to have you on our panel today at the Global Disability Summit. So, before we start the conversation, I’ll just give you the floor to introduce yourself – the amazing person who has been contributing from [the] last three decades in the disability movement. Judy, please introduce yourself.

Judy: Abia, it is such an honour for me to be with you. I’ve known you for, I don’t know how many decades now – because I’m talking decades – and I’m so proud of your leadership. And I think that’s what it’s all about. I’m older than you are so I’ve had more years to be doing the work that I’m doing, but when I look at you and other disabled women around the world who are inter-generational, it is very exciting for me to see those changes.

While the role of women is still not yet where I would like it to be, I think it goes without saying that the role of disabled women has definitely been changing over the last number of decades, and I think that’s critically important because of who we are as women – the insights that we bring, the nurturing and the historical role that we play in families. How we are, in many ways, and I don’t want to say there aren’t men who are like this, but I do believe that we are more systemically oriented. Because we’re really dealing with – whether we’re married or not – the family and the complexity of issues on a day-to-day basis.

Abia: Exactly, this is really important because we are seeing the visibility of women with disabilities, and now they are coming out of their homes. The charity-based model [of disability] is now moving toward the human rights [model] – the idea that disability rights are human rights – and in that perspective, we are working.

Abia: So what kind of changes you have been witnessing since 2018 [when the Global Disability Summit was last held]? What are the visible changes in the disability movement?

Judy:  Well, obviously since the last summit we’ve had the pandemic, and I think the pandemic obviously has had a very negative impact on the globe and certainly on poor and middle income countries – even more than wealthier countries.

One positive thing that I believe has come out of this pandemic is that the development of our movements around the world have allowed us to more rapidly focus on the need to ensure that disabled people are not receiving substandard services and treatment, regardless of the country they’re in.

When I think about this summit and where we were in 2018 and where we are in 2022, you have a more sophisticated, knowledgeable group of disabled people in civil society and in the disabled people’s organisations. But also, in organisations that previously did not include disability – there are more of those alliances which are occurring. Again, they’re not where they need to be, but we’ve seen changes so that we have a stronger voice that’s not just the voice of disabled people.

The fact that governments are willing to hold this summit in 2022 when there are so many things going on, I think also means that in many governments, issues affecting disabled people are, again, not where we want them to be, but they are becoming more central.

Abia: Judy, thank you so much for your time. It was really amazing to learn from your experiences. Just one point – could you share a message to young persons with disabilities, especially girls?

Judy: First of all, I want to say thank you for asking me to speak. I also want to say that I believe now more than ever, we need to be looking at an intergenerational movement. For younger people with disabilities, what is very important is that you matter.

And if you’re listening, you know, you do matter because you know about this. You know about this summit. You’re tuned in. So what is really important is: turn to your left, turn to your right, in front of you, behind you, the people who are not here today and really look at what is happening to them. How are you helping to empower them? How is your organisation or other organisation allowing disabled girls and women, and boys and men, to feel like their voice matters?

We need to be a family, where we respect each other for our insights and our willingness never to give up.