Statement on Rights at the Intersection of Gender and Disability during COVID-19

This statement was sent for endorsement.

April 8, 2020

COVID-19 and the government and healthcare responses to this crisis are having a significant impact on the lives of people all over the world. It is vital that governments and health officials ensure that human rights are part of this response. In particular, they must ensure that the rights of people from marginalized communities—those who are most likely to see their livelihoods evaporate, their healthcare needs go overlooked, and their lives upended during a crisis—are the top priority.

States, United Nations entities, human rights experts, and civil society organizations are increasingly recognizing the need to ensure that gender-related rights and disability rights are included in the COVID-19 response. However, rights at the intersection of gender and disability have frequently been overlooked. This is despite the fact that women and girls with disabilities are more than half of all persons with disabilities worldwide and are almost 20% of all women worldwide.

This statement is intended to ensure those actors setting and influencing the COVID-19 response have the tools they need to ensure that response is inclusive of women, girls, nonbinary persons, and gender non-conforming persons with disabilities.