WUNRN
Full 17-Page Text:
The Sexual and Reproductive
Rights of Women
and Girls with Disabilities
Carolyn Frohmader, Executive Director, Women With Disabilities Australia (WWDA)
Stephanie Ortoleva, President, Women Enabled, Inc.
1.
Introduction
Sexual and reproductive rights
are fundamental human rights. They embrace human rights that are already
recognised in international, regional and national legal frameworks, standards
and agreements.[i][i] They include the
right to autonomy and self-determination – the right of everyone to make free
and informed decisions and have full control over their body, sexuality,
health, relationships, and if, when and with whom to partner, marry and have
children - without any form of discrimination, stigma, coercion or violence.
This includes the right of everyone to enjoy and express their sexuality, be
free from interference in making personal decisions about sexuality and
reproductive matters, and to access sexual and reproductive health information,
education, services and support. It also includes the right to be free from
torture and from cruel, inhumane or degrading treatment or punishment; and to
be free from violence, abuse, exploitation and neglect.[ii][ii]
However, women and
girls with disabilities throughout the world have failed to be afforded, or
benefit from, these provisions in international, regional and national legal
frameworks, standards and agreements. Instead, systemic prejudice and
discrimination against them continues to result in multiple and extreme
violations of their sexual and reproductive rights, through practices such as
forced and/or coerced sterilisation, forced contraception and/or limited or no
contraceptive choices, a focus on menstrual and sexual suppression, poorly
managed pregnancy and birth, forced or coerced abortion, termination of
parental rights, denial of/or forced marriage, and other forms of torture and
violence, including gender-based violence. They also experience systemic
exclusion from sexual and reproductive health care services. These practices
and violations are framed within traditional social attitudes and entrenched
disability-based and gender-based stereotypes that continue to characterise
disability as a personal tragedy, a burden and/or a matter for medical
management and rehabilitation.[iii][iii]
This Briefing Paper examines
the sexual and reproductive rights of women and girls with disabilities in the
context of the future development agenda Beyond 2014 and Post 2015. It
deliberately focuses on women and girls with disabilities in recognition that
they are generally more likely to experience infringements of their sexual and
reproductive rights given the physiology of human reproduction and the gendered
social, legal and economic context in which sexuality, fertility, pregnancy and
parenthood occur.[iv][iv] This Paper
examines some of the key sexual and reproductive rights violations experienced
by women and girls with disabilities around the world. It includes a discussion
of intersectionality and multiple identity, recognising that this reality is
important to any examination of the sexual and reproductive rights of women and
girls with disabilities. It provides an analysis of the cycle of accountability
in relation to the sexual and reproductive rights of women and girls with
disabilities, looking at the dimensions of responsibility, answerability and
enforceability. It poses some key priority considerations for ensuring the
future development agenda Beyond 2014 and Post 2015 is inclusive of, and
responsive to, women and girls with disabilities all over world. Importantly,
as opposed to ‘needs’, this paper
speaks to the sexual and reproductive rights
of women and girls with disabilities – rights that for far too long have been
violated, denied, ignored and trivialised by those in positions to make a
difference.