This is particularly alarming given the Commission’s thematic emphasis on “Access and participation of women and girls in education, training, science and technology, including for the promotion of women’s equal access to full employment and decent work,” and the disproportionate exclusion women and girls with disabilities face in all of these areas.
Eleven years after the General Assembly put forth Resolution S-23/2 stating:
"Girls and women of all ages with any form of disability are among the more vulnerable and marginalized of society. There is therefore need to take into account and to address their concerns in all policy-making and programming. Special measures are needed at all levels to integrate them into the mainstream of development."
Despite this promise, women and girls with a disability still remain among the most vulnerable, least educated, marginalized, and poorest groups of people in the world, and continue to be left out of mainstream discourse on development and gender issues. The International Disability Forum in Geneva reports that 75% of women with disabilities worldwide and up to 100% in some developing countries are excluded from the workforce. The United Nations Development Program cited that literacy rates for women and girls with disabilities is as low as 1%, and UNICEF estimates that 98% of children with disabilities in developing countries do not attend school; girls with disabilities are less likely to attend school compared to boys with disabilities.
RI urges the international community and United Nations agencies, along with all others, to undertake efforts to include the specific needs and challenges facing women and girls with disabilities into all development and gender work. Without taking disability into account when dealing with gender and development issues, women and girls with disabilities will continue to remain socially and economically disadvantaged. RI also implores the Commission to include women and girls with disabilities into their final conclusion, as there is no reference made to this group in the current draft conclusions.
For more information on women and girls with disabilities, including RI’s current work in India training women with disabilities on self advocacy, economic management, vocation skills and micro-credit, or to find out how research, programming and development can be made inclusive please contact the RI Secretariats at Denne e-postadressen er beskyttet mot programmer som samler e-postadresser. Du må aktivere JavaScript for å kunne se adressen or visit the RI website at www.riglobal.org
