The World Bank is developing a global standard for measuring countries’ inclusion of LGBTI individuals.
By the early 1990s, Dr. Mary Ellsberg had spent years working with women’s health in Nicaragua. Armed with anecdotes of violence against women, she joined a local women’s organization to advance a bill criminalizing domestic violence.
When presented with the bill, lawmakers “pretty much laughed in our faces,” she explained in a 2015 TEDx talk. “They said no one would pay attention to this issue unless we got some ‘hard numbers’ to show that domestic violence was a problem.”
Dr. Ellsberg went back to school and wrote her doctoral dissertation on violence against women. Her study showed that 52% of Nicaraguan women had experienced physical or sexual abuse by an intimate partner. Subsequently, the Nicaraguan parliament unanimously passed the domestic violence bill.
Later, the World Health Organization used Dr. Ellsberg’s indicators to measure violence against women in countries across the world, which showed the global magnitude of the problem.
“One out of three women will experience physical or sexual abuse by her partner,” Dr. Ellsberg said. Because of the data, “violence against women is at the very top of the human rights agenda.”
Dr. Ellsberg knew that domestic violence was a problem, but it was data that prompted leaders to combat the issue.
Similarly, there are plenty of documented cases of discrimination and abuse against lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and intersex (LGBTI) people. But what’s the magnitude of the discrimination?
While schools and educators aim at more inclusive approaches across the globe, it’s important to acknowledge that mainstream education settings can unknowingly exclude deaf and hard of hearing people.
According to the World Federation of the Deaf, out of the 70 million deaf people in the world, 56 million receive no education at all. This is especially true among deaf women and girls, and people living in developing countries.
This is part of the learning crisis that we at the World Bank are concerned about.
Last December, James Dooley Sullivan packed his wheelchair and travelled to Jamaica. Sullivan, an animator and visual arts video editor at the World Bank Group, wanted to see first-hand what it’s like to be disabled in a developing country. He shares his experience and his own history in a video and a series of blog posts.
I shudder every time I think about the external force created when I hit the tree and how that force coursed through my snowboard and up my left leg, which shattered, and on up into my spine, which broke in two. It lasted only a second, but I will never stop thinking about that pressure. Now, I have a new pressure to think about: Pressure Sore.
Last December, James Dooley Sullivan packed his wheelchair and travelled to Jamaica. Sullivan, an animator and visual arts video editor at the World Bank Group, wanted to see first-hand what it’s like to be disabled in a developing country. He shares his experience and his own history in a video and a series of blog posts.
Luckily, when we land in Kingston we are greeted by the only leased van in all of Jamaica with a wheelchair lift. It fits me, my chair, my colleague Peter and all of the camera gear we’ll need to document my adventures learning about disability access in the developing world. What the van doesn’t have is working shock absorbers. I have to brace myself on a seat cushion as our driver Dereck tries to evade pot holes on the way to our hotel.
Whenever I check into a room I have to make some quick assessments. Here in Kingston, the carpet is thick and hard to push through, while the bed is spacious and at a suitable height. My new 17-inch wide chair just barely squeezes into the bathroom but the sink has a granite slab that whacks my knees. In the win column – there’s a handheld showerhead I can reach. In the no-win column – the toilet is really low and will need my complete concentration when in use.
You are young, poor, living in a remote rural area, and one day your whole life is turned upside down by a sexual assault. No matter whether the offender is your partner or spouse, another family member, a teacher, a co-worker or a stranger, you will need to make choices.
