Disability justice is not peripheral to feminism; it is central. Yet movements led by women and gender-diverse people with disabilities remain underfunded and excluded from decision-making. Their leadership is often ignored, even as they face overlapping crises of conflict, authoritarianism, and economic precarity. Activists at these intersections argue that charity is not what they need. What they demand is recognition and resourcing, an acknowledgment that no feminist or human rights movement can claim legitimacy while sidelining those who live with compounded marginalisation.
Since 2022, Urgent Action Fund for Feminist Activism (UAF-FA) has partnered with a global women’s disability rights and justice organisation to document and amplify the work of disability justice activists across the Middle East and Eastern Europe. The initiative focused on Lebanon, Palestine, Jordan, Yemen, Iraq, Tajikistan, Poland, Hungary, Romania, and Belarus.
In 2023, CMI! funding enabled local groups to publish critical reflections on how structural inequities affect those living at multiple margins: disabled, queer, impoverished and displaced. Their work emphasised grassroots-led responses to crises, mutual aid, and collective advocacy as sustainable strategies under repressive conditions. Building on this groundwork, UAF-FA and the global disability rights and justice partner supported activists in 2024 to co-produce research that foregrounded their own experiences and strategies.
The findings were shared at two major global spaces: the Commission on the Status of Women (CSW) and the AWID International Forum. In both venues, disability justice activists directly addressed funders and policymakers, demanding that resourcing shift toward community-led movements. The interventions had a tangible impact: funders acknowledged structural inequities, affirmed commitments to disability-led work, and signalled interest in aligning future strategies with the research, as well as engagement in future conversations as the report gets disseminated further. The momentum continues into 2025 with the launch of Activists from Strength, an interactive report synthesising three years of research and advocacy, available in English, Russian, and Arabic. Designed to engage donors and activists alike, the report challenges users to reflect on how funding structures can change to genuinely support disability justice.
CMI! support enabled activists to generate evidence, strengthen cross-regional solidarity, and claim visibility in spaces where disability justice has historically been sidelined. Funding made it possible for activists to publish critical perspectives on multiple marginalisations, co-produce research rooted in lived experience, and present findings directly to funders at CSW and AWID. This work has contributed to increasing the visibility of disability justice as a central feminist concern, with funders beginning to adapt their practices in response.
“No one is going to save us. This fact shouldn’t throw us in despair. Instead, it should serve as an impetus to seek collectivity, political action and organise with comrades, existing or potential, around us,” one activist said.
