I voted on Tuesday. I climbed up the steps of the building where the voting took place, waited a short while, read the sample ballot, gave my name, signed in, and voted. Democracy in action.

But imagine if you needed someone to carry you up and down the stairs, if...

Imagine for a moment that you are the father of a 13-year old girl with autism, living in Nepal. You approach public and private schools alike and are repeatedly told that the school can't handle your child.

So instead, you join with other parents of children with developmental disabilities...

Imagine registering to vote in the upcoming election, only to be told by a local government official not to go to the polling place because you would "spoil the election." Betty, a woman I met in northern Uganda, was told just that. Why? Because she is blind.

With increasing security at airports around the world, flying has grown more stressful for all of us. But for people with disabilities, flying can be particularly daunting. Imagine if you were the Atlanta businesswoman who was asked to remove her prosthetic arm for further examination. Or if you were

This week, different groups around the world are observing World AIDS Day and the International Day of Persons with Disabilities, on December 1 and 3 respectively. Rarely have the two been observed together. At least until this year. Events hosted at UN headquarters in New York and the US State...

Why does the United Nations blueprint for lifting the world's poorest out of poverty not make any mention of people with disabilities? According to the World Bank, 1 in 5 of the poorest people in the world has a disability.

Ten years ago, the United Nations identified eight "Millennium Development...

This post first appeared in the July 21, 2010 edition of Women's E-News

"I'm a woman with a disability. I am HIV-positive and I am on ARVs (antiretroviral drugs). My life is very hard."

These were the first words Immaculate, a 52-year-old landmine survivor in northern Uganda,...

The documentary film, Music by Prudence, tells the story of a young Zimbabwean woman born with a congenital disease that twisted her body and led to the amputation of her legs. Prudence Mabhena was abandoned by her family and shunned by her community, yet through music, she found a way...

Over two hundred thousand kids are punished in US schools each year by being paddled. One in five of them has a disability. No child should be paddled in school but it is hard to imagine anything more outrageous than paddling or hitting children because of their disability --...