What we’re working on
In addition to our annual campaign, Face Equality Week, our current focus is dedicated to a series of projects which aim to tackle specific issues for the facial difference community. If you would like to support us financially with any of the below, please follow this link to donate. Thank you so much!
Current Focus One: Disfigurement as an Independent Equality and Human Rights Issue
Discrimination and indignities are a daily occurrence for the facial difference community. This is a hidden community that has continued to be marginalised, abused and neglected, throughout history. To this day we do not believe the injustice experienced by this unique community has been adequately recognised or addressed by global society.
Legal recognition of disfigurement is limited to disability laws. Our research indicates that existing disability-specific laws are failing the facial and visible difference community on several levels, largely due to facial differences not being universally regarded as a disability and because the barriers experienced by someone with a facial difference are largely attitudinal rather than physical.
This is why we as an Alliance our current focus is on repositioning facial difference, both legally and socially, in an effort to validate the unique experiences of this particular community. Some living with a facial difference will also qualify and identify as disabled, along with any other marginalised characteristic. We believe all of these aspects are worthy of independent recognition and protections that recognise the unique prejudices experienced by individual and intersecting identities.
It is our long-term ambition to create a space for facial difference to be recognised as an independent equality and human rights issue, because the root of the discrimination, abuse and stigma experienced by the global facial difference community must be effectively addressed.
However, until this has been achieved, we must utilise, strengthen, and raise awareness of any existing laws that might offer protection, and so we will continue to ensure people with facial differences are aware of existing laws that may be disability-related.
For this reason, we are launching a series of legal fact-sheets as part of IFEW 2022, to help people with facial difference to know their rights. It is our aim to break down and explain in understandable terms, the equality laws of the UK, USA, Europe and also the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities.
How FEI is making a difference:
- Recognition of disfigurement both socially and legally as an equality and human rights issue is a core focus for FEI, and at the centre of our Vision, Mission and Values.
- We build capacity for members to lobby in their own legal frameworks, consulting and collaborating with them to understand their advocacy needs.
- Together with our Alliance members and the facial difference community, we are building collective pressure on policymakers, businesses, and the general public, and are feeding into business consultations, UN thematic reports and international conferences.
Current Focus Two: Gathering research to reflect the extent of the injustice and stigma experienced by people with disfigurements
There is a stark lack of data on the experiences of those with disfigurements. We know from limited research in this area, that in many countries babies with facial differences are abandoned at birth, children are banned from school and people are forced to hide away from society as a result of their facial difference, but extensive research is needed to fully understand these issues.
It is essential that our current focus is on understanding the diverse nature of the global experience, in order to truly serve the global facial difference community.
How FEI is making a difference:
- Collaborating with partners to gather evidence on the prejudice, stigma and injustice surrounding the global facial difference community.
- Ensuring that this process is led by those with personal experience of disfigurement.
- Working closely with our members and partners to understand global experiences of facial difference.
- Work with legal advisers and experts to consult on how best to collect data to effectively help us to lobby for policy change.
- Exploring existing interventions delivered by our member organisations that work to counteract this stigma, such as educational resources for schools and universities and conversation guides to raise awareness, debunk myths and reduce shame around facial disfigurement.
Current Focus Three: Empowering the facial difference community to advocate for face equality
There are millions of people worldwide who are currently unaware of the face equality movement and how the strength of the community could help them to make the change in society that they wish to see. We are making it our mission, as part of our current focus to reach these people, and to give them the tools they need to make face equality a reality.
How FEI is making a difference:
- We will co-produce materials and campaigns with the community which address the challenges of living in today’s society, like our recent ‘Parents and Carers Guide’ which has been incredibly successful.
- Leading working groups of people living with a disfigurement, we collaborate on creative projects, face equality week, digital communications and campaigns to lobby government, the media and to shape public perception.
- Working closely with ambassadors and activists both on and offline to amplify the voices of the diverse facial difference community, inspiring and empowering more community members to come forward and take a stance against disfigurement discrimination.
