Women Enabled International’s Comments to the Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities’ Draft General Comment on Article 6: Women

July 24, 2015

Women Enabled International (WEI) appreciates the opportunity to provide comments on the Committee’s draft general comment on Article 6: Women with Disabilities. WEI advocates and educates for the human rights of all women and girls, emphasizing women and girls with disabilities, and works tirelessly to include women and girls with disabilities in international resolutions, policies, and programs addressing women’s human rights and development.

As the Committee’s draft general comment acknowledges, women with disabilities* often encounter specific forms of discrimination on the basis of gender and ability. Recognizing the myriad human rights issues raised by the multiple and intersecting forms of discrimination that women with disabilities encounter, WEI’s comments focus on gender-based violence as a pernicious manifestation of such discrimination. Women with disabilities experience gender-based violence at a magnitude greater than women without disabilities, and women with disabilities face numerous barriers to ending the cycle of violence and accessing justice. This general comment provides a valuable opportunity to clarify States’ due diligence obligations with respect to gender-based violence committed against women with disabilities by both state and private actors. WEI’s submission provides an overview of barriers that women with disabilities face in accessing justice and identifies States’ obligations to respond to such violence. The submission then concludes with recommendations for strengthening the language of the draft General Comment to provide greater clarity on these obligations. In addition to this submission, WEI fully supports and endorses the submission by the Center for Reproductive Rights on barriers to sexual and reproductive rights for women with disabilities.

* For purposes of this submission, all references to “women with disabilities” should be understood to refer to girls, adolescents, and women.