Equal Rights, not Opportunities

When I think about human rights, our first associations are genocide, human trafficking, or poverty in Africa. These seem to be faraway, but human rights issues are also around us and concern invisible people.  Invisible people can be women and people with disabilities that live and interact with us on  a daily basis. Often we do not consider their struggles, this is why they are invisible. 

Photograph by Anna Rok

The eighth day of our program in Warsaw focused on rights of women and disabled people and civil society. Contrary to all Francescu, both groups have one major element in common: rights of these groups are "invisible" in public life.  Everyone could say that (s)he knows someone who is left-handed (10% of society) but it is not so easy  in the case of people with disabilities (13% of society). Woman rights are a subject of public debate, but there are much still to accomplish to achieve gender equality. As far as civil society is concerned, there are also some problems. Today, one of our speakers pointed out the most important issues concerning this issue.
Ms Anna Dryjańska who is currently working at a nonprofit called Feminoteka was our first speaker. Specifically, she outlined 3 main fields of the organization's aims. First, she explained the purpose and significance of  Feminoteka's hotline "telephone number" for women who are victims of domestic abuse.  Second, Ms Dryjańska elaborated upon the trainings and workshops  Feminoteka organized that dealt with gender inequality. And finally, she mentioned Feminoteka's publications that are available on website (www.feminoteka.pl). She admitted that even though Polish law supports gender equality that it is difficult to see it evident in reality. In Poland, men dominate the political arena - 76% (47% of Poland’s population). Furthermore, although women constitute a majority among graduated people in Poland ( 65%), only 26% professors  are women. By the end of the lecture, we were able to better understand the obstacles women faced in order to progress towards a equal society and how men were integral force in the fight for feminist causes.

Photograph by Anna Rok

Mr Jakub Wygnański, vice-president of Managing Board of "Stocznia", raised many key issues concerned non-profit sector in Poland. The speaker was actively involved in the process of shaping legal environment for that sector.  Mr Wygnański tried to answer the questions: what is the difference between civil and civic society, how to generate philanthropy, how to engage youth in to action in non-profit field. He expressed doubts about calculation methods of civil activism  based on a number of NGO's. According to Mr. Wygnanski , "quality not quantity" makes the true difference in civil society. He claimed also that, even now, especially young people , don't trust institutions. Mainly because of a difficult Polish history. However, a lack of trust in institutions doesn't mean that they are passive in social field.  Also, Mr Wygnański mentioned the  Acta movement, which was an example of how the youth organize of themselves without support of any institutions. 

Photograph by Kamil Mamak

And finally, Ms. Magda Szarota, Board Member of HiA Poland and Communications Director; Co-founder and Board Member of the Association of Disabled Women ONE.pl, talked about the issue of disability from a human rights perspective as well as deconstructed the representation of people with disabilities using the cultural studies approach. At the beginning she scrutinized the evolution of the disability in the history taking into consideration how it is being represented/perceived and how existing trends are being reflected in the law.  She pointed out that in many instances people with disabilities are treated almost as a different category of human beings, which turns them into the extreme "others". Then she went on showing  examples on how those negative trends  could be tackled in an effective way. She also presented different paradigms of disability giving a special attention to the human rights/social paradigm which is also reflected in the groundbreaking international human rights document that is the: UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. Ms. Szarota truly inspired us to reconsider our ideas and stereotypes about the mentally/physically challenged following today's session.

Photograph by Anna Rok

In short, the speakers today inspired me to consider how I could become more involved with women’s rights issues and rights people with disabilities, two focus areas that greatly demand more attention and progress within. I hope to continue to learn more about these pressing matters in the upcoming days as we wrap up our lecture segment of the program.

- Kamil Mamak (Polish Fellow)