WEI Statement on Government Due Diligence Obligations: CSW 57 Violence against Women and Girls with Disabilities

By: Stephanie Ortoleva, Founder & President of Women Enabled International
March 8, 2013

As highlighted in the Report on Violence Against Women and Girls with Disabilities written by this author and Hope Lewis and the important report on the subject by Rashida Manjoo, UN Special Rapporteur on Violence Against Women, Its Causes and Consequences, clearly violence against women and girls with disabilities is pervasive worldwide and remains at shockingly high rates. This is the situation in both developed and developing countries, and for women in all identity and economic and social situations. The violence occurs in the home and the family, in institutions, in schools, in the workplace, in prisons, in the justice system, in the transnational sphere and so on and on. Although some actions have been taken internationally and domestically to recognize the problem and to prevent and eliminate the violence, it continues virtually unabated.