Abha Khetarpal

She has won a 2016 National Award for empowerment of persons with disabilities: Best Role Model. She is also the recipient of the Henry Viscardi Achievement Awards, 2019 and 100 Women Achievers Award, 2019 by the Ministry of Women and Child Development, India.

In 2016, when the Department of Empowerment of Persons with Disabilities under the Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment was named Divyangjan Khetarpal publicly critiqued the use of the word divyangjan, highlighting how it is disrespectful and othering to people living with disabilities. She has also spoken about the negative portrayal of women living with disabilities in cinema and media, and how it desexualizes them. Khetarpal has called attention to the lack of representation and misrepresentations of people with disabilities in media and the lack of adequate coverage of the different types of violence that women with disabilities face.

In 2013, Khetarpal was featured in the documentary "Accsex" directed by Shweta Ghosh which explores themes of sexuality and desire through the experiences of four women with disabilities. In her interview for the film, she narrates growing up with disability in a conservative society where sex and sexuality conversation was a taboo, also powerfully relating her experience with healthcare, of being treated a “human body, not a human being” and debunking essential myths about how disabled women desire and express said desire.

In 2010, Khetarpal founded Cross The Hurdles, a non-profit working in counselling and resource building for people living with disabilities. Her disability rights work involves counselling people with disabilities for better employment opportunities, sexual health, and confidence building. She also advocates for people with disabilities in India, critiquing the government schemes and policies, and mainstreaming disability in the sustainable development goals implementation. She also highlighted how people with disabilities faced additional challenges during COVID including the difficulty of finding home nurses.

Abha Khetarpal (born 10 June 1968) is an Indian disability rights activist and counsellor based in New Delhi, India. She is the founder of Cross The Hurdles – a counselling/educational resource website and mobile application designed for people with disabilities.