Rianne Matthias - PFPAD5 Intervention

Thank you, Chair. My name is Rianne Matthias. I am a delegate here with the Organisation for Economic Development and Diplomacy.

As a young person of African descent living with an invisible disability, I wish to draw the Forum's attention to a dimension that remains critically underrepresented in these conversations: the experiences of young people of African descent who are neurodivergent or live with disabilities.

I know what it is like to navigate systems that were never designed for the way my mind works. I know what it is like to mask who I am. And I know that for many young people of African descent who share these experiences, the weight of racial bias and the weight of ableism do not arrive separately. They arrive together, and they compound with each other.

When a young Black student is seen and labelled as disruptive rather than supported, when neurodivergence is met with punishment instead of accommodation, and when we are forced to choose between hiding who we are or being excluded — these are not isolated failures. They are systemic ones. And they follow us from the classroom into the workplace, into civic spaces, and into the very rooms where decisions about our futures are made.

Yet disability remains largely absent from racial justice frameworks, and race remains largely absent from disability frameworks. Young people living at this intersection are rendered invisible in both.

I therefore urge this Forum to recommend that States and institutions adopt an intersectional approach that systematically integrates disability, including invisible and psycho-social disabilities; and that they invest in disaggregated data on race, age, and disability so that young people like me are counted and not overlooked.

We should not have to mask who we are to belong. I am standing here today, but there are millions of young people of African descent with disabilities who are not. The Second International Decade must be built with us, not just for us.

Count us. Include us. Hear us.

Thank you.