WUNRN

http://www.wunrn.com

http://www.usaid.gov/our_work/cross-cutting_programs/wid/gender/wwd_statistics.html

Women with Disabilities - Statistics

• According the World Health Organization (WHO), 10% of men, women, and children worldwide live with some form of disability.
• Approximately 300 million women and girls around the world have an intellectual, mental, sensory, and/or physical disability.
• Globally, women make up three-fourths of the disabled people in low and middle income countries. Between 65% and 70% of these women live in rural areas.
• In OECD countries, statistics consistently identify between 12-20% of the population as disabled. In most OECD countries, women report higher incidence of disability among women than among men.
• The International Labor Organization (ILO) reports that women are at increased risk of becoming disabled during their lifetimes due to neglect in health care, poor workforce conditions, and/or due to gender-based violence.
  The World Bank estimates that 20% of the world's poorest people have some kind of disability, and that they tend to be regarded in their own communities as the most disadvantaged. Women with disabilities are recognized to be doubly disadvantaged, experiencing exclusion on account of both their gender and their disability.
• The World Bank estimates that 1 in 5 people living on less than a $1 a day have a disability.
• The ILO states that women with disabilities are at increased risk of being sicker, poorer, and more sociality isolated than either men with disabilities or non-disabled women.
• The United Nations reports that the combination of male preference in many cultures and the universal devaluation of disability can be deadly for disabled females.

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UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities

http://www.ohchr.org/EN/HRBodies/CRPD/Pages/ConventionRightsPersonsWithDisabilities.aspx

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http://www.ohchr.org/EN/NewsEvents/Pages/DisplayNews.aspx?NewsID=11016&LangID=E

UN CONVENTION ON RIGHTS OF PERSONS WITH DISABILITIES

HIGH COMMISSIONER HUMAN RIGHTS CALLS FOR END TO DISCRIMINATION

GENEVA (13 May 2011) – Colombia this week joined the ranks of 99 other states which have pledged to take concrete steps to ensure equal rights and opportunities for people with disabilities by adopting the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities.

“These states have recognized and affirmed that a person with a disability is not the problem that needs treatment – they are ready to treat the discrimination in society that is the real problem,” the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay said. “A person in a wheelchair is not prevented from accessing the voting booth by her wheelchair but by the stairs leading up to the booth. It is the stairs that are discriminatory and problematic. I congratulate 100 states for acknowledging this truth.”

One person in 10 has a disability, and yet, the needs of this large segment of the population are little addressed. Mortality for children with disabilities may be as high as 80 per cent in countries where under-five mortality as a whole has decreased below 20 per cent. People with disabilities are less likely to be educated and more likely to be unemployed. Only 45 countries have anti-discrimination and other laws to tackle the issues faced by individuals with a disability.

People with disabilities are frequently disenfranchised by being barred from voting due to accessibility problems. Even more grave violations of their rights occur in many parts of the world, such as being forced to take medication against their will, being shut out of schools because of autism, or being locked up at home because of the shame and stigma attached to them by their communities.

In order to counter the exclusion and social invisibility of persons with disabilities, the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities was adopted in 2006 and came into force in May 2008 as the first international human rights treaty of the 21st century. The Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities is monitored by a committee of experts, many of whom are themselves persons with disabilities.

“The adoption of this treaty brought great hope to many individuals with disabilities,” Pillay said: “It is great news that 100 States have now taken these standards on board in their legal systems and committed to making life better for people with disabilities. This is an important step in the direction of universal acceptance of these standards, which promise so much for persons with disabilities.”

Pillay called on all remaining states to move quickly to ratify the treaty, and urged Member States to fulfill their obligations to promote, protect and ensure all human rights of persons with disabilities.

“At a minimum, they must enjoy the respect and dignity due to any member of the community – nothing less,” she said. “States and all actors in society must also take steps to ensure that people with disabilities have an education and employment, can access the medicines of their choice, move freely and live independently, and have the support needed to make legal decisions such as buying property. Change might not happen overnight. But the first steps must be taken today.”