On 15 May 2025, Shitaye Astawes, Director for Advocacy and Communication at the African Disability Forum (ADF), delivered a powerful keynote address at the African Regional Workshop on Access to Justice for Persons with Disabilities, held in Nairobi, Kenya. The workshop convened regional stakeholders, including legal experts, disability advocates, and policymakers, to address the pressing need for inclusive justice systems that uphold the rights of persons with disabilities.

In her keynote address, she emphasized the urgency of aligning judicial systems with the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (UNCRPD) and the African Disability Protocol (ADP). She called for stronger international cooperation, meaningful partnerships, and the full inclusion of persons with disabilities in justice processes. The full speech is available below.

African Disability Forum Keynote Speech at the African Regional Workshop on Access to Justice for Persons with Disabilities “Strengthening Access to Justice for Persons with Disabilities through Legal Reforms and Compliance with the CRPD and the African Disability Protocol.”

Good morning, everyone!

Representing African Disability Forum (ADF), I am honored to speak to you at this workshop. Based in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, I am work for African Disability Forum and I am the Director for Advocacy and Communication. ADF, having more than 58 members across the African region, is a Pan-African representative voice of all Africans with Disabilities. We focus much on building capacity of our members, on voicing the issues, challenges and promoting the rights of all persons with disabilities at regional as well as global levels.

In doing so, such regional engagement as justice is a paramount move and significant to our cause. The cause is a matter of being allowed to live decently in communities and societies as it is outlined in Art. 14 of the ADP. The cause is essential and it is about accessing basic services for daily life.

As you all know, the cause is noble and it’s about getting equitable and equal rights to opportunities and participation including political participations. Luckily enough and including the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the cause now has the needed basic legislative frameworks and instruments at all levels.

However, Africa and its people with disabilities are suffering today from post-covid impacts, conflict, large scale economic crisis, adverse impacts of global warming and climate change, inaccessibility, donors’ perspective changes, discrimination, stigma and low self-stem. In this situation, the principles in the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (UNCRPD) and African Disability Protocol (ADP) are our pillars to anchor and ensure the protection and promotion of the human rights of persons with disabilities. Standing on these basics, I am convinced that we are uncovering a goldmine by the name of International Commission of Justice and participants of this Workshop.

I hope you agree with me if I tell you that as an international mechanism including disability in your work is also your responsibility. Judiciary must address disability in a proper way as people with disabilities continue to live in injustice and in inequality.

As ADF we strongly believe that if our homework gets to be done, it will get done

through meaningful partnership, collaboration and engagement. Partnership, collaboration and engagement has a legal base in the provision of Art. 32 and Art. 33 of UNCRPD and ADP respectively. Those provisions require for international cooperation including development programs to be inclusive of disability and people with disabilities.

Hence, we are here to support the processes and to ensure the practical realization of the provisions. We are ready to frame and scale up our collaboration to a formal partnership so to join hands in promoting disability inclusion in judiciary and to not live no one behind!

Wishing you all a successful deliberation, I thank you and end here.