Abia Akram

Abia Akram is a Pakistani disability rights activist. She is the founder of the National Forum of Women with Disabilities in Pakistan, and a leading figure within the disability rights movement in the country as well as in Asia and the Pacific. She was named as one of the BBC’s 100 Women in 2021.

With personal experience of physical disability, Abia has been actively involved in the disability movement since 1997. Taking part in the fight to give voice to Women with Disabilities (WWD), she has been lobbying parliamentarians, and UN high-level representatives, focusing on advocacy strategies to raise awareness, advance networks and build capacity at the UN level in relation to the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities and Inclusive Development. Abia has also coordinated efforts to include persons with disabilities (PWD) in the implementation of the 2030 Agenda and the sustainable development goals. 

Abia has been a ReC member since 2017 and a P&M member since 2021 at APWLD. She is also a core member of APRCEM’s Ad-Hoc Working Group.

APWLD interviewed Abia in January 2021 and below is her story.

Becoming a disability activist and feminist

With a personal experience of physical disability, I have been engaged in the disability movement in Pakistan since 1997. 

In Pakistan in the 1990s, there were two extremes: First, people believed disability was a punishment from God, so nobody talked to PWD; on the other hand, they felt disability was a kind of test from God, so they had to respect PWD.

In both ways, PWD was not integrated into society but wholly excluded. In that situation, I started my education in a special education centre and had many classmates. However, when I revisited there years later, many of my classmates had already passed away because they were not provided with proper care – it was hard for them to drink water or eat regularly, and they were unable to use the washroom timely.

As a result, I realised we needed a platform for discussing the rights of people with disabilities; this is why I started working with the disability movement in 1997. It took me a couple of years to know that we are not the only ones who work on PWD rights, and so we have connected with other organisations through training exchange programmes. While I attended a meeting in 2009, I learned that WWD’s issues had never been discussed in Pakistan, nobody had discussed the challenges faced explicitly by women and girls with disabilities. As I learned more about the intersection of different movements, I realised how important it is to integrate WWD’s rights, and we have to create links with other movements.

Then, in 2009, I founded the National Forum of Women with Disabilities. The earthquake in 2005 left around 400 women with disabilities, and most of their family members abandoned them. In Pakistan, WWD was completely deemed as dependent and a burden. In our culture, women have to marry, women cannot stay alone. However, few men are willing to accept WWD, so most WWDs cannot get married and are treated as burdens by their families. We started providing them with training in independent living and peer counselling to help them achieve a better quality of life.

In that situation, there are many barriers to achieving WWD’s rights. First, there are communication barriers that are so huge that you cannot talk to women about gender-based violence, sexual harassment and discrimination. Many WWDs are not able to speak to anyone because they are hiding in their families. Second, there are infrastructure barriers. WWD’s families don’t allow them to go outside because buildings are not accessible. Infrastructural barriers are everywhere all over the countries. Third, it is more about the attitude and the social barrier, caused by negative stereotypes about disability. Fourth, there are still huge policies and legislative barriers to overcome. Having passed our first law on disability from a human rights perspective, we have done a great deal on this issue, but there are still challenges.

Despite barriers, we empower women with disabilities by training them in leadership, encouraging them to accept their different lifestyles and be proud of their disabilities, since this is just a different identity. It’s nothing negative, so we encourage women to accept it. As part of our advocacy efforts, we also encourage mainstream organisations and development sectors to include WWDs so that when they are ready to leave their homes, organisations are ready for them as well.

Growing together with APWLD 

Supporting us long-term, APWLD plays an influential role in building the capacities and the movement for WWD in Asia and the Pacific. APWLD organises good work bringing the concerns of WWD very close to their heart. 

The first time I came into contact with APWLD was during a training in Malaysia in which the UN Special Rapporteur on Violence Against Women with Disabilities was present. Since then, we have been connected everywhere, like in the Asia Pacific Regional Civil Society Engagement Mechanism, and I was the focal person of the disability constituency. I am the co-chair of the Asia Pacific Women with Disability Network established by APWLD, and I like working with them. I am also the Regional Council Member for APWLD and a member of AOC on WWD. I have attended several strategic meetings of APWLD, as well as most conferences and the APFF.

We have engaged many WWDs from the Asia-Pacific region with the support and guidance of APWLD, and we have successfully conducted many dialogues and conferences. With the support of APWLD, we gave our collective voices to the UN ESCAP Working Group. Moreover, we participated in the Beijing 25+ review strategic meetings, where we advocated inclusiveness for all movements. I like the Beijing 25+ Review. The Beijing Women’s conference’s official document did not mention WWD, so it was a special achievement to mention it. It was a perfect example of collective contribution.

Moreover, I coordinated efforts to fight for WWD in implementing the 2030 Agenda and monitoring Sustainable Development Goals. The Asia Pacific Women With Disability’s work is all based on the Development Justice framework. So when we talk about the advocacy and the leadership of women with disabilities, we speak from the perspective of Development Justice. We gained awareness from APWLD about SDGs monitoring and the role of civil society organisations, and we incorporated them into our work.

The reason for becoming a ReC member at APWLD was to share what I have learned and to learn more. It was a kind of honour for me to be part of the body that is making the decisions, leading APWLD from different contexts and different diversified groups. I learned a lot from the other members of the ReC: their dedication and their coordination skills. All of us are so connected and respect each other’s opinions and decisions. It’s a family. So it was an excellent opportunity for me to participate in the ReC meetings and speak about various topics relating to WWD and inclusivity within the network. Also, the existence of mine and another ReC member increases the inclusivity of APWLD’s Regional Council.

Ways moving forward

Despite having initiated the discussion, we have brought the concern to the table, but we need to do more to ensure long-term success and impact. This can only happen when everyone takes this on as their agenda or commits to working within their programmes on WWD’s rights. We should consider not just WWD, but all marginalised groups such as LGBTIQ+ when designing programme activities so that we can better understand inclusivity. So maybe we can create a checklist in order to make sure ‘we have incorporated all these points’ when we work with the partner organisations. 

Lastly, during the COVID-19 pandemic, I feel like we haven’t done enough. In this critical time, we look forward to discussing how we can support women with disabilities further. WWD should contribute more to the COVID responses.