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Double discrimination can take place when one person simultaneously belongs to two separate minority or marginalised groups, making it harder to live and average, fruitful life. Such is the situation experienced by many women with disabilities where only 41% of women living with disabilities complete primary school, and only 1 in 5 women living with disabilities are employed. Compared to men living with disabilities where 56% finish primary school and 53% are employed.
Furthermore, women living with disabilities have a high likelihood of experiencing violence, as 1 in 3 will be sexually, emotionally, or psychologically abused in their lifetime. Due to these appalling figures, it was easy to note the urgency in the discussion at the, “Harnessing the Power of Women,” side event in the United Nations Headquarters in New York during the 10th Conference of State Parties to the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities.
UN Women was represented by Mr. Monjurul Kabir, Programme Advisor and Head of Section for Asia and the Pacific and the LDCs. He described the need to improve the data on this issue, noting that all levels of governments have to begin to improve their knowledge on people living with disabilities, especially in rural areas or regions of conflict. There are many people who are not a part of the statistics and thus are left behind when policy is created. By increasing our knowledge on women with disabilities we become more accountable to the issue, which should in turn create greater investment on solving it.
Luis Carlos Lopez, the Deputy Secretary for the Rights of Persons with Disability for the State of São Paulo in Brazil, has been working toward ending discrimination against persons with disabilities, especially women, for many years. The focus of his team for the past 3 years has been, “Chasing, preventing, and facing violence against persons with disabilities.” With this focus they have seen positive results.
They have begun to revolutionize the way Brazil approaches violence and discrimination against people with disabilities by implementing programming with 3 main objectives: increase available data to assess the situation, sensitize public actors and create a support network, and prevent and face the violence. By educating the public on what it means to live with a disability, discrimination has decreased. Also by training 10,000 public agents and 1,500 police officers, they are more able to recognize when violence is occurring and know how to deal with it.
These actions echoed the words of the keynote speech from DESA’s Division for Social Policy and Development’s Director, Ms. Daniela Bas. She urged the need for local and national authorities to put theory into action and develop strong social policy to help protect women with disabilities. As a woman living with a disability herself, her speech had an earnest tone as it came from a place of personal experience.
Ms. Bas stressed, and the rest of the panel agreed, that to best improve the lives of women with disabilities there needs to be collaboration amongst a variety of focus areas. Therefore the only way to solve this issue is by bringing together those that work toward improving the conditions for women and girls in education, eliminating violence, and breaking gender barriers with those that work on similar issues for people with disabilities.
For more information please visit COSP10 or DSPD websites.
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