Sheikha Hessa Khalifa A.
Al Thani was appointed as the UN Special Rapporteur on disability in
June 2003 for the period 2003-05. In July 2005, this mandate was
extended 
till December 2008. HRH Sheika Hessa is known to people
through her official documents as the UN special rapporteur on
disability, this interview is trying to go behind the official role to
know the person. The interview was conducted by Dr. Sunil Deepak from
AIFO/Italy in Cairo on 3 May 2006 during a regional meeting of the
World Health Organisation (WHO) on implementation of UN Standard Rules
in Eastern Mediterranean region.
Sunil
Deepak: When did you first become aware of the disability issues ?
What influence this has had on your way of thinking, on your life?
Sheikha
Hessa: My first contact with disability happened when I started to
work as a volunteer at the society for persons with disabilities,
"Society for Special Needs" it was called. I had many
concerns and interests including voluntary work on issues related to
women, youth, poverty, development, etc. and my interest in disability
was similar to my other interests.
I
have one special area of interest, that really interests me very
deeply, that of human rights. About disability, once I was interested,
I wanted to know more and I was visiting hospitals, attending
conferences. With some of the disabled persons, I had a kind of
friendship, I would visit them in hospitals when they were not well.
This was while I was still studying.
In
Qatar, we are part of the ruling family, but our family is very close
to people and there is a feeling of equality, we are all part of the
same tribal community. Some people ask me, how are you doing all this,
how you can give so much of yourself to the work, but I think that I
am not doing any thing special. I feel that I am a working woman like
so many other women, many of whom are equally committed and involved
in their work. HRH Sheikha Moza bint Naser Al-misnad, wife of Emir of
Qatar, initiated the national committee for persons with special
needs, she initiated the Supreme Council for Family Affairs, she
promoted the creation of first house for children with autism and Down
syndrome in Qatar. She has been my inspiration.
This
role as UN Special Rapporteur and this engagement has changed me. I
feel proud of this change. It has given me a wider vision of the
society. I have a better understanding about human rights.
Working
with disability has given me better vision of issues like human
rights, equality, participation. Once you understand the concept of
equalisation of opportunities for persons with disabilities, it is
easy to see it in context of human rights.
It
has also changed me in a more personal way, in relation to my family.
I was not a very social person earlier, but now I am. I listen to
people and I care about the details. Sometimes, I encounter persons
who have negative views, they are not aware about human rights issues.
Now I can not accept it, I am more forceful in saying what I think. I
am a very flexible person but I don’t accept that people can talk or
do things against the human rights and I am willing to fight, to fight
for the rights of human beings and not just for persons with
disabilities.
During the interview
Sunil
Deepak: Becoming the Special Rapporteur, you would need to travel
much more and have other responsibilities, what this mean to you a
person?
Sheikha Hessa: I
now have so little time. I am a single mother, I was married once but
now I am not married and I have a 14 years old daughter. I don’t see
her very much. I try to make sure that we spend the holidays together.
When ever I am in Doha, I pass so much time in my office. So this role
has implications for my personal life and I try to balance it, by
trying to spend quality time with my daughter. I think that it is the
same as for any other working woman, who must balance her personal and
working lives. Even if my daughter is a child, she understands to some
extent what I do and she encourages me to do more.
I
am changed also at a cultural level. I am now attending more events
& meetings, not just those related to disability. This role has
opened another door for me and it has enriched my life. My daughter
supports this and helps this, but as a child, sometimes she gets bored
and wants her mother and does not care about what I am doing! She and
her friends inspired me to work much more at school level and we have
initiated activities at school level in Qatar to raise awareness on
these issues.
Sunil
Deepak:
As a woman in the role of Special Rapporteur, what do you think about
the women with disability and what do you plan to do about this
specific area?
Sheikha
Hessa: Women with disability are
a priority for my work. I have believed in my role and I have prepared
for it. I went through all the documents prepared by my predecessor,
Mr. Bengt Linquist and I was very interested in his supplement to the
UN Standard Rules. In my opinion that supplement does not get
sufficient attention.
I
have four priority areas for my work – women with disabilities,
children with disabilities, psychological developmental disabilities
and area of disability & poverty. You hardly find anything about
women with disabilities in any programmes and activities. They hardly
mention the specific issues linked to women with disabilities. Even
after the Beijing conference, there has been hardly any thing specific
about women with disabilities in action plans, etc. I hear about it
constantly from disabled women who are my friends. When I visit
countries, women from different cultures raise up this issue, they ask
me to do something about it, to raise this issue. I believe that women
with disabilities face multiple discrimination.
In
developing and poor countries, persons with disabilities lead very
tough and difficult lives and this is even more true for women with
disabilities. I am trying to tackle this in different ways, at
political level, at international level, through visits and
discussions, through speeches. Recently a disabled woman from Bahrain
came to me and said that women with disabilities are invisible in our
region. I feel this responsibility very strongly of supporting them to
be more visible.
