Rights of Disabled Women - In the context of a New UN Convention on promotion and protection of human rights of persons with disabilities

Ms. Kuhu Das
Director
Association for Women with Disabilities

Disability-specific legislation in India

The present population of India is 102 Crores, In India approximately 5-6% of the total population are disabled which means the number of disabled people in India is around 6.12 Crores. To protect the rights of disabled people in India an Act called Persons with Disabilities (Equal Opportunities, Protection of Rights and Full Participation) Act 1995, was passed and was enacted in 1996. Although the Act is known to be one of the best and comprehensive among the disability Act or legislation existing in the countries of the region, but the Act suffers from indistinct terminology and lacks teeth for its full implementation with lack of adequate and proper monitoring mechanism. The caveat that reforms should only be undertaken within the limits of a state's economic capacity nothing but nullifies the Acts potential for change. The Act is in practice since last 8 years but has failed to bring the desired change in the quality of life of disabled people and also failed to protect the human rights of people with disabilities.

Need for a new International Convention

The Human Rights of Disabled peoples have been an important debate for long now. The International change in the attitude towards the rights of Persons with disabilities is especially significant for the Asia and Pacific Region and has been so for India too as one of the country in the region. The first change came when the World Program of Action concerning Disabled Persons was accepted in 1982 by the General Assembly of the UN. The United Nations Standard Rules on the Equalization of Opportunities for Persons with Disabilities and the World Program of Action both effectively shifted the focus of disability legislation all over the world from aiding the disabled person to adapting their surroundings to permit equal participation in the society. But the Standard Rules have been criticized for having many gaps. Neither gender dimension nor the needs of children with disabilities are treated sufficiently in the Standard Rules. It may be noted that the gaps are mainly in the areas where significant Human Rights instruments already exist like CEDAW or CRC but it will be worth mentioning here that both the above mentioned Women's Rights (CEDAW) and Children's Rights (CRC) Treaty has failed to protect the rights of the disabled women and children.

Rights of Disabled Women in the context of the New UN Convention on protection of human rights of persons with disabilities

While generally, still now a large section of women in the region suffer discrimination and neglect as part of their daily existence, girls and women with disabilities live under extremely difficult circumstances. Despite their significant number, they are most vulnerable even within the women population. Majority of them are hidden and silent, their concerns are unknown and their voices are unheard and when the women's movement has already been a global movement, Beijing Declaration, Nairobi Forward Looking strategy, Beijing +5 Platform for Action and CEDAW has been adopted for elimination of discrimination against women, the discrimination faced by the disabled women remained unchanged in all primary areas of concerns.

Disabled women and girl form at least 10% of the total population of women. (Ref: Beijing+5: Priority concerns of disabled women 2000, EDF 00/11-16 May 2000), which is definitely an alarming situation and should be a priority area of concern during discussion of any policy or programme related to human rights of people. Even using the lower disability prevalence rate (5%) in the developing countries the number of disabled girls and women are more than 80 million in the Asia and Pacific Region and this number is growing daily. Daily increase in the number of disabled persons in the ESCAP region is about three fifth of the world population and half of this are women. Despite this significant number in the countries of the ESCAP region disabled girls and women are left out all most in all development process. During the Asian and Pacific Decade of Disabled Person, 1993-2002 it was noticed that not every action to improve the status of disabled person has benefited disabled women equally.

The new Biwako Millennium Framework for Action towards an Inclusive, Barrier-Free and Rights-Based Society for PWD on Asia and the Pacific recognizes that the girls and women with disabilities are one of the most marginalized sections of the society and even after the completion of the first Asian & Pacific Decade of Disabled Persons, 1993-2002 the situation has not changed much and therefore, the governments and other stakeholders in the region need to undertake special measures to resolve the imbalance, providing the necessary support service to promote the full participation of girls and women with disabilities in mainstream development.

It is evident that the existing women's humans rights instruments CEDAW has not been able to promote and protect the rights of disabled women and thus, the new convention on rights of disabled people should ensure the rights of the disabled girls and women in true sense.

It is necessary that all the actors involved in the treaty elaboration process should take care that the elements of the Convention in its structure and also in the elaboration of its provisions ensures that girls and women with disabilities be able to enjoy their human rights with dignity and without any discrimination. It is also necessary to take care of the fact that Implementation of the various provisions of the convention, which ensures the protection and promotion of the rights of women and girls with disabilities should be the state party obligation and to pursue this objective appropriate measures must be set up with a persistent follow up system.
I, personally, as a woman having a disability look forward to the new convention with the hope that the new convention will promote and protect the human rights of the disabled girls and women and thereby bring them a qualitative, meaningful life with self confidence and dignity.

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Main	Programme	Materials	Online	Bangkok

	Regional Workshop towards a Comprehensive and Integral International Convention on Protection and Promotion of the Rights and Dignity of Persons with Disabilities Bangkok, Thailand, 14-17 October 2003