WUNRN
Women Enabled, Inc.
Advocating for the Rights of All
Women!
HARMFUL TRADITIONAL
PRACTICES AGAINST WOMEN & GIRLS WITH DISABILITIES
UN
Commission on the Status of Women, 57th Session - 8 March 2013
By
Stephanie Ortoleva, Esq., President and Founder, Women Enabled, Inc.
I
am Stephanie Ortoleva, President of Women Enabled. I regret that I cannot join you in person for
this important panel and thank Rebecca Levin for agreeing to read my
statement. The support of the Government
of Germany, the Women’s UN Report Network and other sponsors of this
informative panel have made this strong contribution to CSW57 possible. As we discuss the impact of harmful
traditional practices and violence against women and girls, I implore you to
include our forgotten sisters, women and girls with disabilities. We are women too!
The
2012 report of Rashida Manjoo, UN Special rapporteur on Violence Against Women,
focused on gender-related killings of women and pointedly states: “Rather than a new form of violence,
gender-related killings are the extreme manifestation of existing forms of
violence against women. Culturally and
socially embedded, these manifestations continue to be accepted, tolerated or
justified — with impunity as the norm.” Additionally, in her 2011 Report
Ms. Manjoo highlighted the impact of the multiple and intersecting dimensions
of women’s lives on violence and discrimination.
Caution is
required, as some parties have been referencing "traditional values"
to justify harmful practices and thereby legitimize violations of women's human
rights. This undermines the
fundamental principle of universality of human rights through promoting
cultural relativity. On the other hand, some traditional values may be vehicles for promoting and
implementing human rights. For example,
dignity, sometimes described as a “traditional value,” is also a concept in
human rights law, defining dignity as an inherent aspect of being human,
directly linked with equality and respect.
This concept is part of CEDAW and also is in the Convention on the
Rights of Persons with Disabilities, as dignity is linked to autonomy as a core
principle.
Many human rights violations,
justified by traditional, cultural or religious values, are targeted against
minority or disenfranchised groups, including women and girls with
disabilities. In light of the myriad
impacts of some traditional myths and cultural views of disability, combined
with attitudes toward women in general, women and girls with disabilities are
in a double bind. These linkages must be
addressed from a gender-sensitive, disability-inclusive approach.
The
notion that disability is a “curse” and that people with disabilities are
“possessed” or “evil” and the societal views of women as “witches” or
“demonic,” persists today, with origins dating from 1485 and earlier.
Murder
of women and girls with disabilities as witches is highlighted as a human
rights violation by Philip
Alston, Former UN Special rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions in
his 2009 Report. The medieval notion
that one can identify a “witch” by the fact that her offspring are children
with disabilities still persists.
Further, having an offspring with a disability is seen as a curse on the
woman herself for some wrongdoing or
breach of a societal taboo.
Women who challenge accepted
socio-cultural norms, traditions, perceptions and stereotypes about femininity
and the role, behavior and status of women in society are often labeled with
psychosocial disabilities. As a
mechanism of control, they frequently are subjected to forced psychiatric
interventions that are harmful and deprive them of legal capacity and autonomy,
resulting in the erasure of personhood.
Professor Nora Groce focuses on the persistent misguided myth
that sex with a woman or girl with a
disability, because of the assumption that she is a virgin, can cure HIV/AIDS,
resulting in rapes of women and girls with disabilities and increased risk of
HIV-infection. Special Rapporteur Alston notes that women and children with
albinism are hunted and killed based on superstitious beliefs that their skin
or body parts transmit magical
powers which bring good health or prosperity.
In other cases, they are killed based on the belief that they are evil
or cursed.
Other
violations also cross borders and cultures based on traditional values
regarding the value of the lives of women and girls with disabilities. Neglect, through starvation or ill-treatment
often results in severe injury, health impacts and sometimes even death. Parents may refuse to register the births of
girls with disabilities or, even worse, kill them because of the family’s view
that it lacks the capacity or
willingness to nurture, support and care for a girl child who they and the
community consider useless and a burden.
Forced
sterilization and imposed contraception and abortion are based on cultural attitudes
about the value of the lives of women and girls with disabilities, as well as
their right to self determination, are often sought by parents or guardians and
with the support of the legal system.
Women
and girls with disabilities, like all women and girls, are subjected to harmful
practices such as female genital
mutilation, forced marriage, and rape (including rape by a spouse. Forced marriage is based on misguided ideas
that the daughter with a disability will need someone to care for and
financially support her or that if she does not marry, her siblings will not be
viewed as eligible for marriage by the community or the young woman with a
disability is forced to marry a man who has “disgraced family honor.” Women and girls with disabilities are subjected to gender-specific and
disability-specific harmful traditional practices, and therefore are more
discriminated against, violated, marginalized and exploited.
The
role of human rights education, focusing on core human rights principles and
traditional values that coincide with those principles is an important tool for
change. States are responsible for
taking systematic action to
modify or eliminate stereotypes and negative, harmful and discriminatory
practices justified by traditional values.
Both approaches are required under the CEDAW and the CRPD. Additionally, to ensure that the rights of
women and girls with disabilities are included as we embark on this discussion,
the international women’s rights movement must include our sisters with
disabilities in analysis and advocacy.
If you would like to explore these ideas further, please contact me at President@WomenEnabled.org. Thank you.
Resources:
Stephanie Ortoleva & Hope Lewis: “Forgotten
Sisters - A Report on Violence against Women with Disabilities: &
Overview of Its Nature, Scope, Causes & Consequences,” available
at: http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2133332.
Rashida
Manjoo, Special Rapporteur on Violence Against Women, Report of the Special
Rapporteur on Violence Against Women, Its Causes and Consequences, Report on
Violence Against Women with Disabilities, U.N. Doc. A/67/227 (August 3, 2012),
available at: http://www.un.org/ga/search/view_doc.asp?symbol=A%2F67%2F227+&Submit=Search&Lang=E
Rashida Manjoo, UN Special Rapporteur on
Violence Against Women, Report to the Human Rights Council: Gender-Related
Killings of Women, 23 May 2012, A/HRC/20/16, available at:
http://www.ohchr.org/Documents/Issues/Women/A.HRC.20.16_En.pdf
Rashida Manjoo, Special Rapporteur
on Violence against Women, Report of the Special Rapporteur on Violence against
Women, its Causes and Consequences, (considering multiple and intersecting
forms of discrimination) U.N. Doc. A/HRC/17/26 (May 2, 2011), available at
http://www2.ohchr.org/english/bodies/hrcouncil/docs/17session/A-HRC-17-26.pdf
Philip
Alston, UN
Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions, REPORT TO THE Human Rights
council, 27 May 2009, A/HRC/11/2
27, available at: http://www2.ohchr.org/english/bodies/hrcouncil/docs/.../A.HRC.11.2.pdf.
U.N. High Comm’r for Human Rights,
Women’s Rights and Gender Section, Responses to the Note Verbale on Human Rights Council Resolution 17/11:
"Violence against women and girls and disability,” http://www2.ohchr.org/english/issues/women/docs/A.HRC.20.5.pdf.
Convention
on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women, G.A. Res.
34/180, U.N. Doc. A/RES/34/180 (Dec. 18, 1979), available at http://www.unhcr.org/refworld/docid/3ae6b3970.html.
Convention
on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, G.A. Res. 61/106, U.N. Doc.
A/RES/61/106 (Dec. 13, 2006), available at