Discrimination against Women and girls with disabilities – IDDC’s contributions to the CRPD draft guidelines
The UN Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD Committee) launched a Call for Written Submissions to inform the development of their Guidelines on addressing multiple and intersectional forms of discrimination against women and girls with disabilities. The call invited civil society organizations and other stakeholders to provide inputs on key concepts, challenges, and practical measures to ensure the effective implementation of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, with particular attention to gender equality and intersectionality.
In its submission, the International Disability and Development Consortium (IDDC) highlights the systemic and compounded discrimination faced by women and girls with disabilities and gender-diverse persons with disabilities due to the intersection of gender, disability, and other factors such as – but not limited to – age, poverty, ethnicity, indigeneity, location, displacement, and humanitarian contexts. The submission emphasizes that discrimination is rooted in structural inequalities, harmful stereotypes, and unequal power relations, and calls for a strong human rights–based and feminist disability justice approach.
IDDC underscores the need for the guidelines to explicitly address violence, sexual and reproductive health and rights, legal capacity, access to justice, education, employment, social protection, and participation in decision-making. The submission stresses the importance of meaningful participation of women and girls with disabilities and their representative organizations in all stages of law-making, policy development, and monitoring. It also calls for intersectionally-analyzed disaggregated data, adequate resourcing, and coordinated action across sectors to effectively address multiple and intersectional discrimination in line with the CRPD.
Download the IDDC submission to the CRPD draft guidelines on addressing multiple and intersectional forms of discrimination against women and girls with disabilities from the OHCHR website
More information on the Call for written submissions on the draft guidelines on addressing multiple and intersectional forms of discrimination against women an girls with disabilities and all the submissions made.