Women with disabilities face double discrimination in society. Prejudice, inaccessibility, lack of support, adequate employment and inclusive education contribute to the general isolation of people with disabilities, which is especially painful for women due to patriarchal standards and gender roles that further hinder their efforts to live a dignified life. Recently, women's rights and gender-based violence have been in the focus of the general public, but women with disabilities are, unfortunately, marginalized even in the activities of women's rights organizations. There is still a huge gap in understanding human rights violations in the field of disability. The Information Center for People with Disabilities "Lotos" in its work pays great attention to issues of improving the position of girls, young women and women with disabilities, which resulted in a program that includes several projects:
Project "Strengthening the position of women with disabilities in Bosnia and Herzegovina - reducing discrimination and violence" aims to improve the position of women with disabilities in society in Bosnia and Herzegovina who face discrimination and violence and plans to bring about change in the areas of capacity building of organizations, empowerment of women with disabilities and policy changes regarding women with disabilities. These changes will be made through the implementation of various activities primarily designed for the empowerment of women with disabilities: training, peer support and mentoring programs. The project is implemented by IC “Lotos” Tuzla in partnership with Threshold Association / Kynnys ry from Finland.
The project "I am here - visible and proud” is implemented by 5 coalitions of organizations of persons with disabilities in BiH through MyRight and is financed by the Swedish Agency for International Development Cooperation Sida, represented by the Embassy of Sweden in Bosnia and Herzegovina and the Kahane Foundation. The project focuses on greater inclusion of women with disabilities through their active participation in organizations of persons with disabilities. By involving the wider membership, the coalitions will map and conduct research on women with disabilities who are not active members or not at all members of OOSI but live in the area of work covered by the coalition in order to encourage and encourage them to join the project through conversation. By participating in the project, women and girls with disabilities will have the opportunity to increase their knowledge and skills through active participation in the mentoring program and various trainings that will enable them to actively engage through the mentoring program, training and establishment of a forum for women with disabilities. The goal is for women and girls with disabilities to become active participants in PWD coalitions through active involvement in Forums of women with disabilities. Through this project, organizations of persons with disabilities will ensure the meaningful participation and representation of women with disabilities, thus fulfilling the obligation of enabling gender equality in OSI. During the project, OOSI will provide the necessary support so that women with disabilities can actively participate in the work of OOSI and advocate for the rights, topics and issues they consider to be extremely important. Through the experiences of this project, OOSI will be able to better plan and implement activities that will contribute to attracting an increased number of women with disabilities to OOSI membership in the future. More precisely, understanding from OOSI will ensure that they support the important step of identifying women who are not active and involved in OOSI activities today. These women are often socially isolated, financially dependent, under pressure from public prejudice and generally have no support. Women with disabilities will have the opportunity to be empowered and encouraged through the project, and to engage and speak on their own behalf. With greater self-esteem, they are expected to be active and interested in advocating for the improvement of their quality of life and position in OOSI and the community. It is expected that their greater participation will strengthen OOSI's promotion of women's rights.
Project “Inclusion of disabilities in actions for gender equality in Bosnia and Herzegovina” is being implemented with the support of the US Embassy The project will influence organizations and institutions to include a disability perspective in their work and enable greater participation of women with disabilities in their activities and services. The project will be implemented in several locations throughout Bosnia and Herzegovina. The key locations will be Sarajevo, Banja Luka, Bijeljina, Tuzla and Mostar. The project will include mapping the most active organizations and institutions for gender equality and selecting them for participation in the project and analyzing the disability perspective within the organizations, whether strategic documents are in line with the principles of inclusion and non-discrimination, as well as whether spaces and information are accessible to persons with disabilities, etc.