Human Rights in Ireland

In continuing the series of blogs on the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) in advance of the September UN summit this week’s blog focuses on MDG 3 – Promote Gender Equality and Empower Women.  All of the Millennium Development Goals touch upon essential aspects of women’s lives for example, women specific issues such as maternal health, child mortality and in more general terms vulnerability to HIV/AIDs, poverty and hunger. Empowering women is critical to realising the achievement of the MDGs and this is the premise of MDG 3.

While, this goal is recognised to be vitally important for the overall success of the MDGs, women with disabilities remain invisible within its targets. Disability and gender in the developing world are inextricably linked. Importantly gender is recognised as a risk in acquiring a disability. For example, the risk of women becoming disabled in the developing world is exacerbated by cultural practices such as female genital mutilation (FGM). The World Health Organisation (WHO) estimates that between 100 and 140 million girls worldwide live with the consequences of FGM.[1] Additional to this, inadequate services in maternal health also increases the risk of women acquiring a disability. The WHO estimates that more than 30 women every minute are seriously injured or disabled during labor, rendering large numbers of women in the developing world physically disabled and socially excluded. Statistics show that for every woman who dies from complications of pregnancy, between 30 and 100 live with painful and debilitating consequences.[2]

While being female increases the incidence of poverty and impairment, disabled women are also excluded from the majority of development interventions on the basis of their gender and disability. According to Human Rights Watch “Women and girls with disabilities have largely been invisible within the international development agenda. Efforts to achieve the Millennium Development Goals – including those on poverty, education, HIV, and gender equality – will fall short unless governments and UN agencies include women and girls with disabilities in their programs, planning, and decision-making”.[3] The limited statistics available show how this invisibility results in women with disabilities remaining on the periphery of development programmes. For example, the literacy rate for women with disabilities may be as low as 1%; mortality rates amongst girls with disabilities are much higher than for boys with disabilities.  25% of women with disabilities are in the workforce and 65-75% of disabled women in low and middle-income countries live in rural areas increasing their susceptibility to poverty and marginalization.[4]

Disabled women’s exclusion is not specific to mainstream development interventions such as education and health. Research by Groce and Driedger[5] found that even with disability specific services, the needs of disabled women are not considered. Citing examples of health and rehabilitation services developed post conflict cater more for male veterans then the needs of disabled women.  This is evident for example in locating rehabilitation centres in urban locations resulting in disabled women needing to travel long distances leaving behind their family and support networks.

Until the adoption of the Convention on the Rights of People with Disabilities (CRPD), there was no legally binding international law that explicitly named women with disabilities as requiring protection. The Convention on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) while having obligations for achieving equality between men and women and prohibiting discrimination against women; did not explicitly make reference to women with disabilities. This prompted the international disabled women’s lobby to call for a specific article in the Convention on the Rights of People with Disabilities. The CRPD has provided what some call a twin-track approach to disabled women’s issues, firstly focusing on the principles of promoting gender equality while also recognising the specific needs of disabled women.[6] For example, Article Six calls on states to take provisions specific to address the discrimination experienced by disabled women and to take specific measure to ensure the advancement of human rights for women with disabilities. Alongside these specific obligations, the CRPD contains an anti-discrimination clause for disabled women and it calls upon State Parties to adopt empowerment measures for disabled women.

The human rights approach proposed by the CRPD can play an important role in supporting the inclusion of disabled people in the MDG’s. This is particularly true for disabled women. In addition to its specific obligations in respect of disabled women, Article 23 focuses on reproductive health and Article 16’s focus on freedom from exploitation, violence and abuse. These provisions along with the CRPD’s principle of equality and non-discrimination go some way towards addressing the omission of women with disabilities in international law and development aid and provide a framework for achieving equality for women with disabilities.

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[1] See World Health Organisation, Female Genital Mutilation, http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs241/en/

[2]ibid

[3] See Human Rights Watch http://www.hrw.org/en/news/2010/06/28/un-include-disabilities-development-agenda

[4] See USAID Women with Disabilities, http://www.usaid.gov/our_work/cross-cutting_programs/wid/gender/wwd.html

[5] Research by Driedger (1991) and Groce (1991) cited in Women with Disabilities in the Developing World, Arenas for Policy Revision and programmatic change, Journal of Disability Policy, 1997:8:177

[6] Disabled Peoples International: Gendering the Draft Comprehensive and Integral International Convention on the Protection and Promotion of the Rights and Dignity of Persons with Disabilities – by Dr. Sigrid Arnade and Sabine Haefner (2006)

Related Posts

• November 21, 2011 -- Council of Europe Recommendation on the Political Participation of Persons with Disabilities (0)
• November 16, 2011 -- Getting it Right: Capacity Legislation and the Convention on the Rights of People with Disabilities (0)