1st Deaf Women European Forum in Valencia, Spain

oktobris 30, 2018

Citi

EUD board member Louise “Lolo” Danielsson and EUD gender equality working group members attended 1st Deaf Women European Forum (the Forum) in Valencia on the 18th, 19th and 20th October. The aim of the Forum was to encourage leadership and political participation of deaf women and to discuss ways how to incorporate gender perspective in governance on national and European levels. It provided with a space for debate and exchange of experiences for deaf women across Europe and led to many fruitful discussions.

During the Forum proposals and agreements on strategic lines of action in favour of deaf women and girls in Europe were discussed. Three strategic guidelines were analysed: strategic guideline 1 on gender perspective and deaf associative movement; strategic guideline 2 on gender violence elimination and strategic guideline 3 on deaf women and health care.

The 1st Deaf Women European Forum was a huge opportunity to discuss rights of women, gender equality and social inclusion from the deaf perspective and to present legal tools for advocacy for women and girls with disabilities.

Conference on Feminist Initiative, Equality, Accessibility and Social Justice took place during the Forum. Moreover, round table discussions took place on various topics such as equality and no discrimination of deaf women from a feminist perspective, linguistic and cultural identity and intersectionality; deconstructing different ways of violence against deaf women: audism and misogynist violence; deaf women in European associative field, experience from national associations from Europe. The Forum was concluded by finalising future proposals on political agenda for gender equality and rights for deaf women in Europe.

The Forum was organised by the Spanish National Confederation of the Deaf, the Deaf People Federation of the Valencian Community and the European Union of the Deaf.