A systematic approach to strengthen the inclusion of the rights of all women and girls with disabilities
1. Accelerating progress towards Gender
Equality, Empowerment, Full, Effective
and Equal Participation of Women & Girls
A systematic approach to strengthen the inclusion of the rights of all women
and girls with disabilities
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2. Eliminating all forms of discrimination,
systemic barriers, exclusion, gender-based
prejudices & violence
Sustainable & Transformative
progress on Disability Inclusion
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3. Challenges leading to Exclusion
❏ More than 1 billion people globally (about 15%) of the world’s population - estimated to have disability and
most of them live in developing countries. Expected to increase due to range of factors - aging, war and
conflict, natural disaster, forced displacement
❏ More prevalent among women than men - The World Report on Disability estimates that globally 19% of
women have disability relative to 12% of men. Representing about 1 in 5 women
❏ Experience various types of impairments - physical, psychosocial, intellectual and sensory conditions, and
in addition, the diversity of women and girls includes those with multiple and intersecting identities, such
from different ethnic, religious, and racial backgrounds; refugee, migrant, asylum-seeking, and internally
displaced women, LGBTQI+ persons, women living with and affected by HIV, young and older women,
and widowed women, across all contexts
❏ Multiple identities, systemic barriers and exclusion lead to (a) lower economic and social status (b)
increased risk of violence (c) harmful gender-based discriminatory practices (d) barriers to access
education, healthcare, including sexual and reproductive health (e) information, services and justice (f) civil
and political participation (g) higher rates of unemployment (h) precarious livelihood, unequal access and
control over assets and resources (i) child care responsibilities (j) lack of access to maternity protection
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4. Urgent need to prioritize data-collection & targeted efforts to protect
this group
● Children with disabilities is estimated to range
between 93 million and 10 million - may not give a
real representation
● Lack of disaggregated data by age, gender,
disability, ethnicity, and other status hinder the
calculation of adequate statistics - contributing to
invisibility children, especially girls
● Persistent tendency to speak of people and
children as group, without differentiating between
impairments, age, or gender identities. Specific and
varied experiences of each group are not
acknowledged
● Very few gender-based violence programs focus
on integrating persons with disability into
protection and gender-based violence
assessments
● Assessments such as Gender-and-age
appropriate focus group discussions,
integrating specific gendered questions on
disability in focus group topic guides do
happen but rarely identify skills and
capabilities - a missed opportunity to advance
community programming
● Interventions documents do not clearly
demonstrate a decrease in violence or
mitigation of risk factors
● Lacks rigorous planning, implementation and
evaluation
● More evidence on various forms of violence is
needed on interventions for sustainable
change
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5. Development Programming & Learning: Multi-track Strategy for
Gender Mainstreaming
Track I
Mainstreaming:
Systematically include
gender, age, and disability
perspectives
Track II
Targeted:
Empowerment &
meaningful,
effective
participation as the
main focus
Track III
Inclusion:
All ages have a seat at the table, and
agency
This approach for gender mainstreaming has a greater potential for achieving gender equality and
women’s empowerment. This consists of combining gender-targeted or focused interventions for specific
social groups, organizations and or/ processes with gender efforts integrated across the substantive general
work of all priority sectors. This also ensures full and effective participation in all aspects of life on an equal
basis with others in the context of development, human rights, peace and security.
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6. Strategic Areas of Investment and Engagement
Investment
● Norms, Policies and Programmes - Data
and evidence, Intersectionalities and
Synergies, Accessible & inclusive
innovation and technology
● Strategic Partnerships - United Nations
System & inter-governmental processes,
Member states, civil society organisations,
Private sector and others
● Inclusive management - Accessibility,
reasonable accommodation, universal
design, enhanced capacities for inclusion
and diversity
Achieve
● Comprehensive and dynamic set of global norms,
policies and standards of gender equality and
empowerment
● Lead, participate and benefit equally from
governance systems
● Income security, decent work and economic
autonomy
● Live a life free from all forms of violence
● Contribute to and have greater influence in
building sustainable peace, and resilience, and
benefit equally from the prevention of the natural
disasters and conflict and from humanitarian
action
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7. Transformative Shifts and
Innovative Solutions to remove
Structural Barriers
Build capacity to support evidence-
based policies and disability inclusive
initiatives
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8. In line with the Principle of Leaving No One Behind: Empowering
the most vulnerable
❏ Generation of knowledge and evaluations on the situation of women and girls with disabilities
❏ Use and support production of data and evidence that engages women and girls with disabilities
directly to ensure that their perspectives are reflected and used to complement other data sets
❏ Support information exchange platform including user-producer dialogue on disability statistics by
sex in consultation with women with disabilities
❏ Strengthen capacities of organizations to collect data, strengthen knowledge management practices,
develop partnerships for collection of better data and policy programmes
❏ Focus on high impact accessible innovations
❏ Encourage and promote inclusive design of innovation with the active participation of women and girls
with disabilities as innovators and entrepreneurs, prioritizing education in STEAM (Science,
Technology, Engineering, Arts and Mathematics) and also be in innovation incubators
❏ Prioritize initiatives that promote partnerships with UN Agencies, social enterprises, and civil society
actors developing products and services in consultation with women and girls with disabilities to
ensure their rights and perspectives are reflected
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9. Disability in India: Report on Persons with Disabilities (Divyangjan) in
India - A Statistical Profile 2021
❏ As per Census 2011, differently abled population in India is 26.8 million (2.21%) with a marginal
increase, figure rising from 21.9 million in 2001 to 26.8 million over the period of 10 years
❏ Total number of differently-abled people is over 18.0 million in the rural areas and 8.1 million in urban
❏ Percentage of men with disabilities is 2.41% as against 2.01 in women (11,824,355 women with
disabilities as compared to 14,986,202 men. Women constitute 44.09% of total disabled population
❏ Highlights the need to work towards an inclusive barrier free society by raising awareness and policy
actions, and to have a comprehensive reliable statistics on people with disability and their socio-
economic conditions
❏ Legal mechanisms are in place, but require frequent review to ensure rights are exercised by the
women and girls with disabilities freely
❏ Government provides several schemes but due to lack of access to information, education, illiteracy,
poverty, awareness, majority of the population are deprived
National Policy for persons with Disabilities, 2006 highlights the need for developing special programmes
with focus on education, employment, providing rehabilitation services, vocation training facilities for gainful
employment skills, financial support, short duration stay homes, hostels for working women, homes for aged
disabled women. 9
10. India: Legal Case Study
Jeeja Ghosh & Anr. vs. Union
of India & Ors.
Supreme Court of India states,
“Before parting two aspects need to be
mentioned. First is that no differently abled
person should be manually lifted without his
consent. We find that the suggestion is worth
considering, as lifting of a person manually is
inhumane. How, the differently abled person
should be treated with dignity is left to the
DGCA.”
❏ Moot question was with regard to the
treatment of differently abled person
❏ Petitioner seeks directions for the
respondents to follow the Civil Aviation
requirements (CAR) guidelines dated 1st
May, 2008 with regard to carrying/ lifting of
differently abled person and was apprised in
2017 of the CAR guidelines that suitable
amendments are required for effective care
of differently abled person
❏ Draft Guidelines were revised in July 2021
❏ Supreme court of India considered the matter
on humanitarian ground
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11. Global initiative: the way disability is measured & focus to strengthen
mechanism of collecting data
❏ WHO’s World Disability Report captures effects of disability on the human condition and provides evidence
for innovative policies and programmes
❏ To standardise the concept of disability, Washington Group on Disability Statistics, set up under UN
Statistical Commission seeks to collect cross-nationally comparable data and can identify persons with
disability to provide services
❏ At the regional level, the Incheon strategy to “Make the Right Real” for the persons with disability in Asia
and the Pacific was launched in 2012 to plan the new course of action for the Asian and Pacific decade of
Persons with Disabilities, 2013-2022
❏ UN Disability Inclusion Strategy (2019) states that UN should lead by example and raise the Organization’s
standard & performance. 2020 report establishes baseline on disability inclusion and reflects on clear
progress
❏ Sustainable Development goals (SDGs) goal of “leave no one behind” involves persons with disability at all
levels, including national, regional and international
Despite several global initiatives, availability of reliable data on important indicators is still a major concern.
Data disaggregation by disability, regular data flow on the indicators remain a major challenge. National
Statistics Office (NSO), India is taking initiatives to bridge the data gap by collecting large scale National
Sample Surveys (NSS) between the intervening period of two population censuses to collect data on important
characteristics of Disability.
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12. Disability is referenced in many parts of the Sustainable
Development Goals (SDGs), and specifically relates to:
(a) equitable education
(b) inclusive and sustainable economic growth
(c) empowering and promoting social, economic, and
political inclusion of all to reduce inequality within
and among countries
(d) work towards making cities and human settlements
inclusive, safe and sustainable
(e) strengthening the means of implementation and
revitalizing the global partnership for sustainable
development
(SDG Goals 4, 8, 10, 11, 17)
Note: Indicative Graphic representation of the
relationship of SDG 5, and other SDGs and CEDAW,
CRPD, and CRC from the study “The Empowerment of
Women and Girls with Disabilities: Towards full and
effective participation and gender equality” by UN
Women 12
13. Make sure people with
disabilities realize their rights
Commit to achieve SDGs for and with
persons with disabilities to create a
more inclusive society where everyone
can live freely with dignity
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14. “My advice to other disabled people would be,
concentrate on things your disability doesn’t prevent
you doing well and don’t regret the things it
interferes with. Don’t be disabled in spirit, as well as
physically.”
- Stephen Hawking
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15. “An inclusive approach & a paradigm shift, where all
women and girls, with disabilities, in all their diversity and
across their life course are included and considered equal
partners across the humanitarian - development
continuum, and their rights and agency are fully realized.”
- UN Women’s Strategy
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16. References
❏ Strategy: The Empowerment of Women and Girls with Disabilities, Towards Full and Effective Participation and Gender
Equality, New York, December, 2018 (aligns with UN Women’s Strategic Plan 2018-2021)
❏ Brief on violence against women and girls with Disabilities, Report by The World Bank Group with The Global Women’s
Institute, IDB, ICRW (2019)
❏ Situation of Women and Girls with Disabilities and the status of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities
and the Optional Protocol thereto, Report of the Secretary General, United Nations General Assembly, 28th July 2017
❏ Persons with Disabilities (Divyangjan) in India - A Statistical Profile: 2021, Ministry of Statistics and Programme
Implementation (MoSPI), 31st March 2021
❏ National Policies for Persons with Disabilities, Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment, Government of India, No.3-
1/1993-DD. III, dated 10th February 2006
❏ Jeeja Ghosh & Anr. vs. Union of India & Ors., Writ Petition (Civil) No. 98 of 2012, 1st December 2021
❏ Photo credit, Slide 7: United Nations - Department of Economic and Social Affairs
❏ Photo credit Slide 13: Sabuhi Novruzov, Dreamstine Stock Photos, Pinterest
❏ Websites: UN Women, UN, The World Bank
Note Acronyms:
● CEDAW : Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women
● CRPD : Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities
● CRC: Convention on the Rights of the Child
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