At Risk and Overlooked: Children with Disabilities in Armed Conflicts

 

February 16th, 2024

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In armed conflicts and crises, children with disabilities face serious threats to their lives and safety, including those related to their inability to flee attacks, risk of abandonment, lack of access to assistive devices, lack of access to basic services, and denial of education. They also experience stigma, abuse, psychological harm, and poverty. Children with disabilities experience multiple and intersecting forms of human rights violations based on their disability and age. Yet they have largely been left out of international community’s commitment to protect all children impacted by hostilities. Emina Cerimovic will give an overview of Human Rights Watch’s work on children impacted by armed conflict in the Central African Republic, Cameroon, Syria, and the Occupied Palestinian Territory.

Speaker

  • Emina Cermovic

    Emina Cerimovic

    • she/her

    Biography

    Emina is a lawyer and an associate disability rights director at Human Rights Watch. She leads the organization’s work on the protection of people with disabilities in situations of risk, including armed conflicts, and humanitarian emergencies worldwide. She has investigated human rights violations against children with disabilities in Syria, the lack of inclusive response to refugees with disabilities in Europe and is currently monitoring and reporting on the situation of people with disabilities in the context of Israel and Palestine. Ćerimović has also documented shackling and abuses against people with mental health conditions in Nigeria, the institutionalization of children and adults with disabilities in Croatia and Serbia, and discrimination in access to education for children with disabilities.

    Before joining Human Rights Watch, Ćerimović worked with the OSCE Mission to Bosnia and Herzegovina and with the State Prosecutor’s Office of Bosnia and Herzegovina on the prosecution of war crimes committed in Bosnia during the 90s. Ćerimović holds a law degree from the University of Sarajevo and an LLM in Human Rights with a Specialization in EU Law from the Central European University in Budapest. She speaks Bosnian/Croatian/Serbian, English, and Swedish.