INTRODUCTION

Around the world, more than 1 billion women and men and boys and girls are living with some form of disability.1 Although most people will experience disability at some point in their lives, understanding the meaning of disability and its impact on the ability of each individual to be active participants in social, economic, sociocultural, and political life remains a challenge. Physical, social, and legal barriers continue to limit access to education, health care including sexual and reproductive health (SRH), employment, leisure activities, and family life for millions of persons with disabilities worldwide.2 These barriers can be most acute for young persons with disabilities. Globally, an estimated 180 to 200 million persons with disabilities are between the ages of 10 and 24.3 Young persons with disabilities4 are like young people everywhere: They have dreams and ambitions, interests and desires, and hopes for their futures. But young persons with disabilities face persistent social disadvantages worldwide stemming from discrimination, stigma and prejudice, and the routine failure to incorporate disability into building policy, and programme designs. Physical, socio-economic, socio-cultural, and legal barriers continue to limit access to education, health care including SRH, employment, leisure activities, and family life for millions of persons with disabilities worldwide, and violence against young persons with disabilities is widespread.5
Persons with disabilities, including young persons with disabilities, are at greater risk of living in poverty than are their peers without disabilities.6 They are much more vulnerable to violence, including gender-based violence (GBV), and are less likely to attend school.
They receive too little information about puberty, sexuality, and healthy relationships, introducing new vulnerabilities to sexual exploitation and denying them the rights to live satisfying sexual lives, choose to be married, and have children.

Read the’YOUNG PERSONS WITH DISABILITIES: GLOBAL STUDY ON ENDING GENDER-BASED VIOLENCE, AND REALISING SEXUAL AND REPRODUCTIVE HEALTH AND RIGHTS‘

Corporate Author: UNFPA

Publication Year: 2018

To be published on country nodes: Burundi

Theme: Access to SRHR Services

URL: http://www.unfpa.org/sites/default/files/pub-pdf/51936_-_UNFPA_Global_Study_on_Disability_-_web.pdf

THE STATE OF AFRICAN WOMEN REPORT AND THE RIGHT BY HER CAMPAIGN

This State of African Women report is published in the State of African Women Campaign (SOAWC) project, whose overall
objective is to contribute to securing, realising and extending women’s rights enshrined in African Union (AU) policies in
African countries. The project is being implemented by a consortium of eight organisations, under the lead of the International
Planned Parenthood Federation Africa Region (IPPF AR).1 The SOAWC project has two intermediate objectives. The first is
to influence legal and social norms on women’s rights through greater transparency and public pressure on duty-bearers. The
second is to hold decision-makers to account for their policy commitments on women’s and girls’ rights through a stronger
civil society voice and meaningful participation in decision-making.
At the heart of the SOAWC project is the Right By Her campaign, which focuses on increasing civil society’s contribution to
implementation of the African commitments on women and girls’ rights in sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR).
The Right By Her campaign focuses in particular on implementation of the AU’s Maputo Protocol (the Protocol to the African
Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights on the Rights of Women in Africa) and the Maputo Plan of Action (MPoA), which is the
implementation framework for the Continental Policy Framework on SRHR. The campaign seeks to strengthen implementation of
the Maputo Protocol and the MPoA at four decision-making levels across Africa: continental, regional, national and subnational.
It does so by strengthening civil society organisations (CSOs) in two aspects: in terms of knowledge on women and girls’ rights
in SRHR and in terms of advocacy strategies and capacity to meaningfully participate in decision-making processes. As such, the
SOAWC project aims to enhance CSOs’ potential to have a long-lasting and far-reaching impact.

Read ‘THE STATE OF AFRICAN WOMEN’

Corporate Author: IPPFAR, IPPFEN, OAFLA,  DSW, KIT, F2A, YWCA

Publication Year: 2018

To be published on country nodes: Burundi

Theme: Access to SRHR Services

URL: http://www.ippfar.org/sites/ippfar/files/2018-09/SOAW-Report-FULL%20VERSION.pdf