Every year, for two to three weeks around International Women’s Day, hundreds of women and allies from around the world gather in New York for the UN Commission on the Status of Women (CSW). Diplomats, international agency representatives, and leaders of non-governmental organizations share strategies, academic and field research, best practices, and personal narratives—all with the objective of advancing the rights of women and girls worldwide. Official panels and NGO side events are crammed into an information-filled schedule, dazzling attendees as they decide which event to attend. Texts of resolutions and the Final Conclusions are debated, sometimes passionately. The gathering is energizing, informative, tearful, frustrating, but always a force that motivates action.
Unfortunately, not all women are as welcome as others. For many years women with disabilities who want to engage at CSW—women who want their experiences respected, their contributions valued, and most of all, their rights reflected in the resolutions and Final Conclusions—have struggled with this experience.
Despite the implications for millions of women and girls with disabilities and their families, issues concerning them receive only limited coverage, if any, in influential official research and other preparations for CSW. There is scant inclusion in side events, other than those few organized by women with disabilities themselves. CSW can contribute to a more inclusive and effective awareness of discrimination against all women by welcoming women with disabilities to the table.
The priority thematic issue for CSW57, from March 3rd—15th this year, is the prevention and elimination of all forms of violence against women—a significant problem for all women, but especially women with disabilities. A recent comprehensive report, Forgotten Sisters—A Report on Violence Against Women with Disabilities: An Overview of its Nature, Scope, Causes, and Consequences, highlights the pervasive scope, multiple forms, complex causes, and severe consequences of violence against women and girls with disabilities, and makes recommendations for future action.
The core principle of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) is “Nothing About Us, Without Us.” Justifications for inclusion at CSW are numerous.
Representation and fairness are the most obvious: there are approximately one billion persons with disabilities worldwide—15 percent of the global population, according to the 2011 World Health Organization’s and World Bank’s World Report on Disability. There are significant differences in the prevalence of disability between men and women: male disability prevalence rate is 12 percent, while female disability prevalence rate is significantly higher, at 19.2 percent.
Although significant progress has been made in increasing awareness of the issues of women in human rights treaties, the UN recognized that more attention needs to be directed to the situation of specific groups of women, including women with disabilities.
According to Sigrid Arnade and Sabine Haefner, women who led the effort to ensure that the rights of women with disabilities were incorporated into the CRPD, “Gender is one of the most important categories of social organization. Patterns of disadvantage are often associated with the differences in social positions of women and men…[and] reflected in the different life experiences of women with disabilities and men with disabilities. Women with disabilities have to face multiple discriminations...Women and girls with disabilities are recognized to be doubly disadvantaged, experiencing exclusion on account of both their gender and their disability.”
Violence against women and girls with disabilities is perpetrated and/or condoned by state and private actors within public and private institutions in the transnational sphere. Forms of violence are varied: physical, psychological, sexual, or financial violence; neglect, entrapment, degradation, forced sterilization, and forced psychiatric treatment. They are two to three times as likely to experience domestic and other forms of gender-based violence as non-disabled women or disabled men, and are more likely to experience abuse over a longer period as well as suffer more severe injuries resulting from violence. Their abuser may also be their caregiver, someone that she relies on for personal care or mobility.
Many issues exacerbate violence against women and girls with disabilities. Discriminatory employment practices and systemic poverty place them among the poorest of the poor. Because education was not provided for girls, or school facilities were not accessible or designed to meet their needs, they are denied educational opportunities. Because of the dangers of violence, the high cost of assistive devices like wheelchairs, or complicated access to public transportation systems, traveling is difficult. Globally, they are often the last in the family to receive food because they are viewed as useless. Too often, they are unaware of services to address violence and discrimination, or such services are not available. Because health services are not accessible (medical equipment or facilities are not physically accessible, information is communicated in ways that are not accessible, sexual health myths such as believing they are asexual are perpetuated), they do not receive proper health care, including urgently needed sexual and reproductive health care services.
The justice system also places barriers before women with disabilities who challenge violence and discrimination. Too frequently they do not even report violence and discrimination, as they are not privy to the same information available to non-disabled women. They have little to no information on how to work through the system, especially in accessible forms, or they have no access to affordable legal representation. When cases are reported, police and judges generally cannot communicate with them or do not find their testimony credible.
Despite ongoing challenges, there are advances. In 2012, Rashida Manjoo, the UN Special Rapporteur on Violence Against Women, issued a report on violence against women with disabilities. Several creative and courageous women with disabilities have taken up these challenges and are leaders in the global movement for the rights of women with disabilities. Ola Abu Al Ghaib of Stars of Hope develops creative programs to advance the rights of women and girls with disabilities in the Middle East, implementing programs on organizational capacity building and political participation. In India during recent debates concerning how crimes of violence against women are addressed, Shampa Sengupta of the National Platform for the Rights of the Disabled pushed for amendments to India’s laws on sexual offenses to address issues of concern to women with disabilities. To advance the participation of women with disabilities in peace and conflict programming and processes in Afghanistan, Tina Singleton is embarking on a video project to bring women with disabilities into the public eye, in their own words. Carolyn Frohmader of Women with Disabilities Australia has undertaken extensive research and lobbying efforts to bring an end to forced sterilization of women with disabilities. Karine Grigoryan of Agate Center for Women with Special Needs in Armenia works with young women with disabilities on self-esteem, human rights education, and technology skill building. Maria Veronica Reina leads the Global Partnership for Disability and Development, implementing its projects and is a renowned expert in the rights of women with disabilities in disaster situations, and in inclusive education.
The recommendation for the inclusion of issues of concern to women and girls with disabilities in the work of the CSW is consistent with the gender-sensitive, disability-inclusive approaches outlined in the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, the UN Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women, and the groundbreaking 1995 Beijing Declaration on Women.
The CSW 57 shows great promise and hope that the greater inclusion of a substantive discussion of violence against women and girls with disabilities at the session as well as greater participation of women and girls with disabilities will result in significant change.
Stephanie Ortoleva, an international human rights lawyer, is a recognized and published author and researcher on issues of women’s rights and the rights of women with disabilities. She is the Founder and President of Women Enabled, which educates and advocates for the human rights of all women and girls and to include women and girls with disabilities in international resolutions, policies and programs addressing women’s human rights and development.
This article was originally published in the Diplomatic Courier's March/April 2013 print edition.
a global affairs media network
Women Enabled
March 11, 2013
Every year, for two to three weeks around International Women’s Day, hundreds of women and allies from around the world gather in New York for the UN Commission on the Status of Women (CSW). Diplomats, international agency representatives, and leaders of non-governmental organizations share strategies, academic and field research, best practices, and personal narratives—all with the objective of advancing the rights of women and girls worldwide. Official panels and NGO side events are crammed into an information-filled schedule, dazzling attendees as they decide which event to attend. Texts of resolutions and the Final Conclusions are debated, sometimes passionately. The gathering is energizing, informative, tearful, frustrating, but always a force that motivates action.
Unfortunately, not all women are as welcome as others. For many years women with disabilities who want to engage at CSW—women who want their experiences respected, their contributions valued, and most of all, their rights reflected in the resolutions and Final Conclusions—have struggled with this experience.
Despite the implications for millions of women and girls with disabilities and their families, issues concerning them receive only limited coverage, if any, in influential official research and other preparations for CSW. There is scant inclusion in side events, other than those few organized by women with disabilities themselves. CSW can contribute to a more inclusive and effective awareness of discrimination against all women by welcoming women with disabilities to the table.
The priority thematic issue for CSW57, from March 3rd—15th this year, is the prevention and elimination of all forms of violence against women—a significant problem for all women, but especially women with disabilities. A recent comprehensive report, Forgotten Sisters—A Report on Violence Against Women with Disabilities: An Overview of its Nature, Scope, Causes, and Consequences, highlights the pervasive scope, multiple forms, complex causes, and severe consequences of violence against women and girls with disabilities, and makes recommendations for future action.
The core principle of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) is “Nothing About Us, Without Us.” Justifications for inclusion at CSW are numerous.
Representation and fairness are the most obvious: there are approximately one billion persons with disabilities worldwide—15 percent of the global population, according to the 2011 World Health Organization’s and World Bank’s World Report on Disability. There are significant differences in the prevalence of disability between men and women: male disability prevalence rate is 12 percent, while female disability prevalence rate is significantly higher, at 19.2 percent.
Although significant progress has been made in increasing awareness of the issues of women in human rights treaties, the UN recognized that more attention needs to be directed to the situation of specific groups of women, including women with disabilities.
According to Sigrid Arnade and Sabine Haefner, women who led the effort to ensure that the rights of women with disabilities were incorporated into the CRPD, “Gender is one of the most important categories of social organization. Patterns of disadvantage are often associated with the differences in social positions of women and men…[and] reflected in the different life experiences of women with disabilities and men with disabilities. Women with disabilities have to face multiple discriminations...Women and girls with disabilities are recognized to be doubly disadvantaged, experiencing exclusion on account of both their gender and their disability.”
Violence against women and girls with disabilities is perpetrated and/or condoned by state and private actors within public and private institutions in the transnational sphere. Forms of violence are varied: physical, psychological, sexual, or financial violence; neglect, entrapment, degradation, forced sterilization, and forced psychiatric treatment. They are two to three times as likely to experience domestic and other forms of gender-based violence as non-disabled women or disabled men, and are more likely to experience abuse over a longer period as well as suffer more severe injuries resulting from violence. Their abuser may also be their caregiver, someone that she relies on for personal care or mobility.
Many issues exacerbate violence against women and girls with disabilities. Discriminatory employment practices and systemic poverty place them among the poorest of the poor. Because education was not provided for girls, or school facilities were not accessible or designed to meet their needs, they are denied educational opportunities. Because of the dangers of violence, the high cost of assistive devices like wheelchairs, or complicated access to public transportation systems, traveling is difficult. Globally, they are often the last in the family to receive food because they are viewed as useless. Too often, they are unaware of services to address violence and discrimination, or such services are not available. Because health services are not accessible (medical equipment or facilities are not physically accessible, information is communicated in ways that are not accessible, sexual health myths such as believing they are asexual are perpetuated), they do not receive proper health care, including urgently needed sexual and reproductive health care services.
The justice system also places barriers before women with disabilities who challenge violence and discrimination. Too frequently they do not even report violence and discrimination, as they are not privy to the same information available to non-disabled women. They have little to no information on how to work through the system, especially in accessible forms, or they have no access to affordable legal representation. When cases are reported, police and judges generally cannot communicate with them or do not find their testimony credible.
Despite ongoing challenges, there are advances. In 2012, Rashida Manjoo, the UN Special Rapporteur on Violence Against Women, issued a report on violence against women with disabilities. Several creative and courageous women with disabilities have taken up these challenges and are leaders in the global movement for the rights of women with disabilities. Ola Abu Al Ghaib of Stars of Hope develops creative programs to advance the rights of women and girls with disabilities in the Middle East, implementing programs on organizational capacity building and political participation. In India during recent debates concerning how crimes of violence against women are addressed, Shampa Sengupta of the National Platform for the Rights of the Disabled pushed for amendments to India’s laws on sexual offenses to address issues of concern to women with disabilities. To advance the participation of women with disabilities in peace and conflict programming and processes in Afghanistan, Tina Singleton is embarking on a video project to bring women with disabilities into the public eye, in their own words. Carolyn Frohmader of Women with Disabilities Australia has undertaken extensive research and lobbying efforts to bring an end to forced sterilization of women with disabilities. Karine Grigoryan of Agate Center for Women with Special Needs in Armenia works with young women with disabilities on self-esteem, human rights education, and technology skill building. Maria Veronica Reina leads the Global Partnership for Disability and Development, implementing its projects and is a renowned expert in the rights of women with disabilities in disaster situations, and in inclusive education.
The recommendation for the inclusion of issues of concern to women and girls with disabilities in the work of the CSW is consistent with the gender-sensitive, disability-inclusive approaches outlined in the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, the UN Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women, and the groundbreaking 1995 Beijing Declaration on Women.
The CSW 57 shows great promise and hope that the greater inclusion of a substantive discussion of violence against women and girls with disabilities at the session as well as greater participation of women and girls with disabilities will result in significant change.
Stephanie Ortoleva, an international human rights lawyer, is a recognized and published author and researcher on issues of women’s rights and the rights of women with disabilities. She is the Founder and President of Women Enabled, which educates and advocates for the human rights of all women and girls and to include women and girls with disabilities in international resolutions, policies and programs addressing women’s human rights and development.
This article was originally published in the Diplomatic Courier's March/April 2013 print edition.
