UNIFEM Briefing held on Women and Disability
On Friday (June 20), the government of South Africa and the UN
Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM) hosted a luncheon
briefing titled " Women with Disabilities: Opportunities and challenges
for women's rights activists in the development of
a Convention on the human rights of people with disabilities." The
briefing, moderated by Sebenzile Matsebula , Director of
the Office on the Status of Disabled Persons in the Presidency of South
Africa, emphasized the need for the explicit equality of
women with disabilities within the context of any human rights
framework.
The meeting, organized by Landmine Survivors Network, highlighted the
need for a paradigm shift: women with disabilities must be
viewed as visible citizens, not, as they often have been in the past,
invisible entities. The panel of experts, including: Theresia
Degener , co-author of the OHCHR report "Human Rights and Disability;"
Charlotte Bunch, Executive Director, Center for the
Women's Global Leadership; and Charlotte McClain, Commissioner, Human
Rights Commission in South Africa, addressed the
current position of women with disabilities, one of the most
marginalized groups - both in the women's movement and within the
disability rights movement itself.
The Current Status of Women
Roxanna Carrillo, Advisor to the Executive Director on Human Rights at
UNIFEM, welcomed participants to the meeting,
and Prof. Degener introduced the issue of women with disabilities in a
human rights context by reviewing their status in existing
UN human rights policy. Until 1985, women with disabilities were
invisible in UN human rights policy and it was not until the
Nairobi World Conference on Women that women with disabilities became
more visible. Although the 1993 UN Standard
Rules on the Equalization of Opportunities for Persons with Disabilities
explicitly mentions women with disabilities, the 1983
ILO Convention No. 159, is the only binding international treaty
mentioning them (Recommendation No. 168 also refers to
them but is non-binding). In addition, there is no mention of women with
disabilities in the text of the1979 UN Convention on
the Elimination of Discrimination of Women (CEDAW), the sole UN human
rights instrument dealing with women. While
women with disabilities do not appear in the treaty text, they are
included in General Recommendation 18 where CEDAW's
monitoring body asks state's parties to report on women with
disabilities. According to Prof. Degener , "If states fail to
mention women with disabilities in their reports then monitoring bodies
often will not ask about them."
Sebenzile Matsebula discussed discrimination against women with
disabilities in a cultural context, citing that in many African
countries women are expected to serve their family and often women with
disabilities are seen as incapable of fulfilling the
duties of a "proper wife," denying them both their rights and their
dignity. Charlotte McClain went on to note that in many
countries, especially developing ones, there is a feminization of
poverty in relation to women with disabilities, who are
marginalized within an already marginalized group; of women in poverty,
those with disabilities are frequently the poorest. In
addition, Ms. McClain urged that specific issues related to women with
disabilities need to be addressed, including: violence
in the private sphere, armed conflict, and HIV/AIDS. "In order for a
convention to address the issues," Ms. McClain
explained, "you need to know what the issues are."
What Must Be Done
Sebenzile Matsebula made clear the need for a unified representation of
women with disabilities within the UN. Even though
there is a good representation of such women in leading position within
disability organizations, "there is no single NGO
devoted to the rights of women with disabilities accredited at the UN
and that leads to exclusion" in the UN human rights
framework. She also underscored the need to strengthen the voice of
women with disabilities by increasing advocacy efforts,
including asking UN organizations mandated to address women's issues
specifically how they will engage the issue of
disability.
Charlotte Bunch spoke strongly about the need to make a convention on
disability rights gender sensitive from the very beginning,
thereby bringing women with disabilities to the forefront of the human
rights framework and empowering them to become visible
citizens. Ultimately, this requires a shift in thinking - from the
treatment of disability as a social welfare issue to that of a human
rights issue. Prof. Bunch explained that "treaties become part of the
struggle in realizing our rights," and enable society to "change
the conditions that victimize certain people," rather than to perpetuate
the view of those victims as "people needing protection."
In order for this shift to occur, the convention process must
successfully adapt to incorporate the rights of this marginalized group.
How do we ensure that the legislation we develop addresses all the
violations it should? Prof. Bunch advised that tribunals or
hearings could provide a useful forum in which women can speak out and
catalog the particular issues that need to be addressed.
She stressed that we "need to mainstream women's disabilities and keep
it on the agenda" and added that, "Every time a group of
women describes the particular situation they're in, [the women's
movement] grows richer."
Ms. McClain closed the meeting, reiterating the need to strengthen the
intersection between gender and disability discrimination to
ensure protection of victims of dual or multiple discrimination. She
also emphasized that a convention must be comprehensive
enough to influence both the public and private spheres and universal
enough to function at local, national, and international levels.
It is essential to maintain and strengthen NGO-government partnerships
through panel presentations, informal discussions, and
open dialogue, which are vital to any treaty drafting effort. In the
end, Ms. McClain emphasized, "Women with disabilities need to
be part of the decision making process."
Towards an Inclusive Disability Convention
In an effort to make a future disability convention gender sensitive,
Prof. Degener insists that women with disabilities need to be
included in any equality/non-discrimination clause and explicitly
mentioned in areas of concern such as education, employment,
violence, eugenic health programs and practices and access to health
services and family life.
In informal discussions after the luncheon several suggestions were
made. It was recommended that any treaty drafting effort -
NGO or state-driven - proactively approach women's rights organizations,
such as International Women Rights Action Watch, to
learn from their experiences with advocating for
women.
Additionally, NGOs interested in ensuring the inclusion of the rights of
women with disabilities in any draft document can approach
the CEDAW experts, who will meet next week to examine state's report,
for guidance and feedback on how issues related to
women's rights can be systematically included in a Convention on
Disability.
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