OHCHR chief says women, girls bear brunt of cyber bullying against persons with disabilities

By Anjali Sharma

UNITED NATIONS – UN Human Rights Council on Tuesday said that the Member States must do more to prevent cyber bullying and overcome unequal access to assistive technology which hampers the rights of persons with disabilities – particularly women and girls.

UN human rights chief Volker Türk recalled the mantra “nothing about us, without us”, which was coined by the disability rights movement, insisted that the international community was failing to uphold a fundamental tenet of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights with regard to people with disabilities, namely that all people are born equal.

“In all regions, people with disabilities are discriminated against and dismissed; held back and held down; undervalued and undermined” in particular women and girls, he said. “They are targeted and ignored.”

Turk highlighted that for today’s online communities, cyberbullying “often means that no place is safe”.

Special Rapporteur on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, Heba Hagrass, noted that progress in disability rights has stalled or regressed for 14% of Sustainable Development Goals targets.

She noted that a full 30 per cent showed insufficient change, according to the 2024 Disability and Development Report.

“The situation for women and girls with disabilities is even more dire as they face compounded discrimination,” Ms. Hagrass told the Council in her capacity as an independent rights expert.

She said that women and girls with disabilities are targets of gender-based discrimination as well as discrimination related to their disability.

“They are under-represented in education and employment and are at heightened risk of violence and abuse – particularly forced sterilization, domestic violence and sexual exploitation”, Ms. Hagrass said.

She echoed Mr. Turk’s warning that internet has carved out a new space for cyberbullying and online hatred disability rights advocate Nikki Lilly insisted that it could also be a “lifeline” for people with visible differences.

Some assistive technologies are also designed by men, for men – leaving some women with prostheses designed for male bodies not working for women as well as they should, Mr. Türk highlighted.

According to research by the WHO cited by Sanja Tarczay, president of the World Federation of the Deaf-Blind said that 1 in 10 people with disabilities has access to adequate technology,

Such technologies “are not just simple tools”, said Ms. Tarczay. “They are facilitators and enablers of full participation and inclusion for persons with disabilities.”

Ms. Tarczay issued a stark reminder that “a world where persons with disabilities are fully included is not just a dream.”

“It is a responsibility we all share, and it is a reality we must commit to building together,” Ms. Tarczay insisted.

Member States addressed the equally urgent issue of developing countries held back from investing in climate resilience by crippling debt repayments.

Attiya Waris, Independent Expert on The Effects Of Foreign Debt, said that 61 countries are either in or are close to “debt distress with little prospect of regaining sufficient fiscal space for climate investments”.

Global climate accords such as the 2015 Paris Agreement recognize that developed countries which contribute most to global warming should provide the bulk of financial assistance to support developing nations.

Ms. Waris noted that despite the deal reached at UN climate change talks last November to triple finance to developing countries to $300 billion annually by 2035, “history has shown that commitments and pledges often fall short of the scale of needs”.

She underscored that $2.4 trillion is required annually to keep climate change goals on track.

Human Rights Council new report mandated by the independent expert said that 3.3 billion people now live in countries that spend more on debt interest payments than on education or health.

Ms. Waris, spoke in an independent capacity, cited World Bank estimates that developing countries spent $443.5 billion on external debt servicing in 2022.

Loss and damage from climate events cost the most climate vulnerable economies upwards of 20 per cent of gross domestic product, amounting to $525 billion over the last two decades, she continued.

The expert said that the data from 2022 indicated that lower-income countries were spending five times more on their external debt payments than on tackling climate change; that ratio rose to 12.5 times in 2023.

Ms. Waris report indicated that across the African continent in 2024, countries which together contribute less than five per cent of global carbon emissions and whose economies run on average on 95 per cent clean energy already are expected to pay $163 billion in debt service.