Our Board appointed the new members for our Women’s Committee during its meeting on the 24-25 October.
The European Disability Forum’s Women’s Committee supports the Forum in ensuring gender-based issues are present in all our policies and documents. The Committee also raises awareness on the situation of women and girls with disabilities and to work towards the inclusion of women and girls with disabilities in society.
Meet the new full members
Representing national councils
Xan Koster
Xan represents Iederi(in), the Dutch national disability council.
Xan is a disability rights advocate and policy advisor with extensive experience in the implementation of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with disabilities (UN CRPD). They have many years of experience in human rights advocacy, policy development, training, stakeholder engagement and the meaningful participation of persons with disabilities.
Dace Dobrāja
Dace represents SUSTENTO, the National Latvian Disability Council.
Since September 2022, she has served as Vice-President of the Board of the Latvian Society of the Blind. Dace has a long-standing commitment to human rights and disability rights, combining her personal lived experience as a woman with a visual disability with many years of engagement in the disability movement. Dace has more than 25 years of professional experience in diplomacy, European affairs, international law and human rights.
Federica Balzani
Federica represents the Italian Disability Forum (FID).
Federica is Senior professional with more than 10 years of experience in patient advocacy, pharmaceutical stakeholder engagement, institutional affairs and healthcare policy across national and European ecosystems.
She is active volunteer since 2009 at Italian Multiple Sclerosis Society and staff member at AISM (Associazione Italiana Sclerosi Multipla) since 2015.
Kornelija Krutulyte
Kornelija represents the Lithuanian Disability Forum (LNF).
Kornelija is a lawyer, researcher, and PhD candidate at the Faculty of Law of Vilnius University. She also works with the Lithuanian Association for Persons with Intellectual Disabilities “Viltis”, where she provides legal consultations, analyses national legislation, and contributes to advocacy related to the rights of persons with disabilities.
Kornelija is also a woman with a disability and has lived experience of disability related to ankylosing spondylitis, also known as Bechterew’s disease. This personal perspective complements her professional and academic work in the field of disability rights.
Representing European Organisations
Sara Rocha
Sara represents the European Council of Autistic People.
Sara also Vice-President of the European Council of Autistic People where she works to ensure the perspective of autistic women are not overlooked in both the disability and gender equality movements.
Sara is co-founder of ‘Associação Portuguesa Voz do Autista’, the first self-advocacy non-profit for autistic people in Portugal. She has been very active in a campaign to criminalise forced sterilisation of women and girls with disabilities in Portugal.
Karina Chupina
Karina represents the European Federation of Hard of Hearing People.
Karina Chupina, PhD, is an international disability rights advocate, researcher, trainer and social inclusion expert with over 20 years of experience at grassroots, European and global levels. Her work has focused on inclusive participation and cross-sectoral capacity building in disability and youth inclusion across Europe and Eurasia, with particular attention to gender, disability and age intersections.
Drawing on her lived experience of profound hearing loss and vast professional expertise, Karina designs and implements inclusive programmes and provides advisory and technical assistance on the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD), EU disability policies, inclusive formal and non-formal education, and meaningful participation. She served as President of the International Federation of Hard of Hearing Young People (IFHOHYP) from 2004 to 2014 and as a member of the European Disability Forum (EDF) Youth Committee from 2008 to 2013.
Velichka Draganova
Velichka represents the European Deafblind Union (EDbU).
Velichka is a deafblind woman and a leader of the Women’s Committee of the European Deafblind Union since 2023, and of the Women’s Committee of World Federation of the Deafblind She has extensive knowledge of the rights of women and girls with disabilities where she advocates within her organisations and at national (Bulgaria) and regional levels.
She is also Chairwoman/President and Jurisconsult of the National Association of the Deafblind in Bulgaria and Head of “Helen Keller” National Center for the Rehabilitation of the Deafblind, Plovdiv.
Elena Ratoi
Elena represents the European Network on Independent Living.
Elena has more than 14 years of professional experience in gender equality, women’s rights, human rights, disability rights and social inclusion, developed through her work with international organisations and civil society, including Equality Now, UN Women, the Center for International Private Enterprise (CIPE), the Council of Europe and organisations of persons with disabilities. She currently serves as Regional Representative for Eurasia at Equality Now, where her work focuses on advancing legal and systemic change to address discrimination and gender-based violence against women and girls, including women and girls with disabilities, across Eurasia.
Meet the new observer members
Laura Coccia
Laura represents Cerebral Palsy – European Communities Association.
Laura is a woman with cerebral palsy with direct lived experience of the intersection between disability and gender, complemented by her experience as a mother with a disability. She is particularly well-qualified and knowledgeable on issues ranging from violence against women with disabilities and implementation of the Istanbul Convention to forced sterilisation, support for motherhood and employment, gender-responsive healthcare and ensuring that European gender equality policy systematically incorporates a disability perspective.
Mia Modig
Mia represents the European Union of the Deaf .
Mia has extensive experience of working on the rights of marginalised groups, both as a manager and as an advocacy strategist. Since 2022 she has leading Sweden’s national women’s helpline providing support in sign language, which runs two digital support lines — one for adults and one for children and young people. Before that she worked broadly within the disability rights movement, with deaf people, hard of hearing people and disability more widely.
Sari Hirvonen-Skarbö
Sari represents the European Association of Cochlear Implant User
Sari was born deaf and received hearing aids at the age of 2 years old. She has extensive knowledge of the priorities and issues of older women with disabilities.
She does counselling and peer support work for persons who have lost their hearing. She is also member of the Finnish Women Disability Rusetti Association.
Tamara Byrne
Tamara represents Inclusion Europe.
Tamara is a self-advocate with large experience advocating for the rights of people with intellectual disabilities at national and European levels.
She is a strong advocate for the right of people with intellectual disabilities to make their own decisions, participate in political and public life, have access to education and employment, live independently, and receive information they can understand.
Virginia Carcedo Illera
Virginia represents Fundación ONCE.
Virginia is Secretary General and Director of Transformation, Excellence, and Equality at Fundación ONCE where she is committed to advancing the rights, inclusion and full participation of persons with disabilities, paying particular attention to the multiple and intersecting forms of discrimination faced by women and girls with disabilities.