Submission to the Special Rapporteur on Violence Against Women, its Causes and Consequences
Call for Femicide-Related Data and Information

By Women Enabled International in Partnership with:

• ONE.pl (Poland)
• Advocacy for Women with Disabilities Initiative (Nigeria)
• Caribbean Council for the Blind
• Fundación Paso a Paso (Mexico)
• National United Society of the Blind (Barbados)
• Red por los Derechos de las Personas con Discapacidad (Argentina)

Our organizations appreciate the opportunity to provide this submission to the Special Rapporteur on Violence Against Women, its causes and consequences (Special Rapporteur) in response to her call for femicide-related data and information and, more generally, in support of her efforts to analyze the causes of femicide and call for its prevention. This submission focuses on these issues as they relate to femicide and women and girls with disabilities.

According to the World Health Organization and the World Bank, women and girls with disabilities constitute 19.2% of women worldwide, making up a substantial portion of the global population. Due to discrimination based on both their gender and disability, women with disabilities experience violations of their rights that are distinct from and disproportionate to those experienced by other women. In particular, women with disabilities experience gender-based violence, including domestic violence, at higher rates than other women, and the violence they experience also has unique forms, causes, and consequences. Girls with disabilities are also more frequently victims of violence, including infanticide, in circumstances where their lives are devalued as a result of stereotypes on the basis of both their gender and disability.

As the Special Rapporteur has found, femicide constitutes “the most extreme form of violence against women and the most violent manifestation of discrimination against women and their inequality.” Despite the acknowledged higher rates of violence against women with disabilities, however, femicides of women with disabilities remain a largely invisible problem, as data on this issue is not consistently collected and, in most cases, remains anecdotal if it is collected at all.