Funded by Stars of Hope and developed in collaboration with Disability Rights Promotion International (DRPI), this study aimed at monitoring the human rights of women with disability in five countries of the Middle East: Jordan, Yemen, Sudan, Egypt and the Palestinian Territories.

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This project constitutes the fourth phase from the project “A Step Forward”, aimed at ensuring that women with disabilities in the target countries have adequate knowledge and resources and are therefore engaged in the process. Stars of Hope provided support to national teams of WWDs through technical assistance to ensure active engagement in monitoring and reporting effort by training, consultancy, online support and small grants.This study has sought to fill the gap existing in data and studies on women with disabilities in the region. It sought to collect analytical data, reviews and factual records to assess marginalization and discrimination against women with disabilities in terms of policy and laws. Through this plan, women with disabilities were fully engaged with local authorities and members of parliament, the media and other outlets to disseminate their message widely, which is their right to be involved in national movements. Moreover, national and local laws will be reviewed against the UNCRPD, therefore gender and disability will be the key factor of analysis.Stars of Hope and the members of its partner network of DPOs in each targeted country, notably mostly women with disabilities who were the lead agents for this study, collected and analysed the data in collaboration with DRPI. This report uses a methodology developed through the Law and Policy Monitoring Template developed by Disability Rights Promotion International (DRPI), which was tailored to a more gender sensitive approach, in line with both the data collectors and respondents.

In line with SHS’s principles, DRPI has made it a guiding principle that persons with disabilities and representatives of their organizations have a central role as key stakeholders in disability rights monitoring. In accordance with this methodology, twelve women with disabilities, following an initial training organized by SHS, engaged in fieldwork in their respective countries and gathered the bulk of information on the basis of which this report was written (a detailed description of this process is provided in the Methodology section in this report). The report was launched in a public session in Amman, Jordan in November 2013 and a focus group was conducted with the women to discuss their experience in the project. Analysis of this focus group are stil pending but the goal is to write an academic paper to document the emancipatory research process involved in this project.