IDDC

IDDC featuring in UN discussion Women Voices in Disability and Development

On 1 February 2012 the Missions of Mexico and Sweden sponsored a side event at the Commission for Social Development, a subsidiary body of the Economic and Social Council of the UN’s General Assembly. The discussion entitled “Women Voices in Disability and Development” focused on the inter-linkage of gender and impairment, highlighting the fall-out from aggravated and compounded forms of discrimination. IDDC emphasised that the cycle of poverty and impairment will often lead to further marginalization, as scarce resources are usually not spent on a disabled family member.

Mexican Ambassador Luis Alfonso de Alba started the discussion on an optimistic streak. Underscoring the success of the Mexican initiative to create the Ad Hoc Committee - which negotiated the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) - he stressed that accessibility for and inclusion of persons with disabilities in development initiatives, particularly the Millennium Development Goals, was climbing up on the agenda of the international community.

Speaking on behalf of IDDC, Marianne Schulze dissected some of the hurdles girls and women with disabilities have to overcome, particularly in developing countries. Widespread gender bias is compounded by the stigma of impairment and the prospect of a good marriage; frequently the primary value attached to a girl is often detached for girls and women with disabilities, sometimes “devaluing” the entire family. The cycle of poverty and impairment will often lead to further marginalization, as scarce resources are usually not spent on a disabled family member. Frequently invisible and thus subject to violence and abuse, women with disabilities are also more prone to experience violence and abuse when out and about. Access to education can be hampered by a lack of accessible transportation and school buildings, but also threats of violence and abuse en route to school.

Overall, the concept of accessibility needs to be understood in its entirety to ensure equal access. In addition to the often cited physical accessibility, the social barriers have to be better dissected to allow for access to education and other equally important spheres of life. Stigma and stereotyping will disable a lot of persons with disabilities, particularly girls and women, from enjoying opportunities. Also, access to communication for visually and hearing impaired as well as non-verbal persons and access for persons with intellectual impairments to easier to understand formats are important. Finally institutional accessibility – ensuring that policies are developed in an inclusive fashion – and economic access, also known as affordability, need to be ensured.

Shanta Rau Barriga of Human Rights Watch highlighted the importance of ensuring access to livelihood support programmes and to HIV projects. Showcasing reports of Human Rights Watch on Uganda and Nepal, she emphasized the importance of ensuring that all forms of impairment be taken into account, also trauma and other consequences of conflict. Health care services were frequently hard to reach due to lack of accessible transportation and long distances, but also because specific support needs could not be met by services provided. Ms. Barriga also underscored the high prevalence of violence against girls and women with disabilities, pointing to estimates of a factor four or five, largely due to the isolation experienced as well as the assumption that persons with disabilities are asexual.

The president of the International Disability Alliance, Diane Richler stressed the interrelation of all human rights, which is so evident when looking at the multiple discrimination that women and girls with disabilities face. Emphasizing the indivisibility of all human rights, she pointed to rights derived from the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) and the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC). Praising the experts with disabilities on the CRPD Committee, she called for mainstreaming of such experts in other treaty bodies of the United Nations. Reiterating the importance of urgently paying attention to the protection from violence, she highlighted mainstreaming opportunities in such fora as the Trust Fund on Violence.

Speaking on behalf of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), Emanuele Sapienza explained the potential of the newly established Multi-Donor Trust Fund. This Fund focuses on ensuring that the inclusion of and accessibility for persons with disabilities be mainstreamed throughout the UN’s programming. The Director of the Division for Social Policy and Development, Daniela Bas showcased some of the work that UN's Department for Economic and Social Affairs (DESA) is undertaking to combat the multiple discrimination that women and girls with disabilities confront. Narrating her own experience of becoming impaired and fighting her way through education to her current position, Ms. Bas stressed the importance of empowerment. “If people are provided with tools they can work on their own lives,” she observed.

A panel at the forthcoming Commission on the Status of Women (CSW) will focus on the empowerment of rural women, including women and girls with disabilities. Ms. Bas also referred to the UN Secretary General’s Five Year Action Agenda as guidance on taking action. In his closing remarks, the Swedish Ambassador, Mårten Grunditz emphasized that much remained to be done, but that the CRPD was a “legally binding and enabling document.”