Bringing disabled women together, mobilising
and sharing through lived experiences

 On the last week of February, two Sisters of Frida, Rachel O’ Brien and Eleanor Lisney joined other women NGOs for the review of UK government on CEDAW – The Convention on the Elimination of all forms of Discrimination Against Women,  often referred to as the ‘women’s bill of rights’, and it spells out women’s right to equality and non-discrimination. They were funded by the EHRC to attend the examination.

They met with Ana Peláez Narváez, the only disabled woman on the committee and they spoke on the needs of disabled women and the importance of CEDAW.

Before the event, Eleanor was in the core group steering group in the shadow report prepared by the Women Resource Centre for England (see the shadow reports). We also did our own Shadow Report supported by Women Enabled International and met with Amanda McRae while they were in Geneva.

Here is a podcast by Eleanor about the CEDAW review and the transcript 

Concluding observations on the eighth periodic report of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland – Advance unedited version

CEDAW 2019 – concluding recomendations with references to disabled women

Government is failing on disabled women’s rights, UN is told report from Disability New Service

Ana Peláez Narváez meeting with Rachel and Eleanor from SOF, Janet Veitch, Viv Hayes from WRC and Amanda McRae from Women Enabled International.

Rachel and Eleanor with other delegates from Women NGOs

Rachel speaking to the CEDAW committee

PRESS RELEASE

Sisters of Frida joins Deaf and Disabled People’s Organisations (DDPOs) from across the UK in Geneva this week to present evidence of violations on disabled people’s rights to the UN Committee on the Rights of Disabled People (UNCRPD)

In a closed session on Monday 21st August, DDPOs will highlight the UK Government’s failure to respond to many of the questions put to it by the Committee throughout this process. They will tell the Committee of the systemic failure to support disabled people to live independently and to have access to social, educational, and employment opportunities.

This is the first time the UN Disability Committee is reviewing the UK’s progress in implementing the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities since the UK government ratified the Convention in 2009. DDPOs will tell the Committee that the government has ignored many of the questions put to it earlier this year as part of the review process. The Committee will consider the government’s response to its questions and the DDPOs’ observations before questioning representatives from the UK and devolved governments in Geneva later this week (23 and 24 August).

Eleanor Lisney, Director of Sisters of Frida says,

‘We have been calling out on the failure of the UK Government to fulfil obligations to disabled women since 2013 when we joined the UK CEDAW (Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women) Workgroup and delegation in 2013 going to Geneva). We did the same when we went to UN in New York city for CSW (UN Commission on the Status of Women) the UKNGOCSW delegation and held a side event. It is vital that disabled women are represented in processes like CRPD reporting as too often our experience as disabled women is invisible.This is an opportunity to change this and show how the cuts and legal changes are affecting us.’

Sarah Rennie, who will be representing Sisters of Frida in Geneva says,

‘The UK Government’s response does not address how gender-specific policies incorporate the social model of disability to break down barriers, meet the needs of Disabled women, or require an intersectional approach. We urge the Government to immediately remove the “best interests” defence in the Serious Crime Act 2015 which restricts Disabled women from seeing their perpetrators of emotional abuse brought to justice, and to improve access to medical care for Disabled women including pre-natal and reproductive health services.’

The DDPOs’ submission was co-produced by Reclaiming our Futures Alliance (including Sisters of Frida ), Inclusion Scotland, People First Scotland, DRUK, Disability Wales, Disability Action Northern Ireland, British Deaf Association, and Black Triangle.

Defend our Rights, Rights of Disabled Women, #intersectionality #CRPD17, #DDPOSGeneva

ENDS

Notes to editors:

1) The UN Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities investigation is assessing what steps the UK has taken to implement the UN Convention on the Rights of Disabled People. The committee is a body of experts, nominated and elected by governments. The majority of committee members are disabled people.

2) The committee postponed its scheduled assessment of the UK (originally due in 2015) to hold a special inquiry into complaints by DPPOs that the government’s welfare reform policies had violated disabled people’s rights. The current assessment looks at a much wider set of issues, including our laws on mental health and mental capacity, employment policies and education.

3) Before examining UK and devolved government representatives on Wednesday and Thursday the committee will meet with representatives of DDPOs to discuss their views on the formal written response already tabled by the UK government. The DDPOs have prepared their own submission as highlighted above.

4) Previous UN shadow reports from Sisters of Frida can be found at https://www.sisofrida.org/resources/

5) ROFA is an alliance of Disabled People and their organisations in England including Inclusion London, Equal Lives, Alliance for Inclusive Education, Sisters of Frida, National People First and Disabled People Against Cuts. For more information see: www.rofa.org.uk

6) more information about Sisters of Frida to be found at https://www.sisofrida.org

7) information on the status of disabled women in the Serious Crime Art 2015 can be found at https://www.sisofrida.org/resources/violence-against-women/

Press queries to

Email: hello@sisofrida.org T: @sisofrida https://www.sisofrida.org

Poster at the Palais des Nations

A main consensus among all the UK NGOs who went to the 55th CEDAW session in Geneva was how access to justice was being eroded by the austerity measures put into effect by the present UK coalition government.

As Sisters of Frida members, we self funded ourselves when we went to Geneva to join the other NGOs. We saw it  important that disabled women were represented with other women organisations (and as a precursor experience to the CRPD coming up later).  There was a rush to get creditation to go (many thanks to NAWO for helping us with that) and research about accessible accomodation, travel, maps, travel documents etc). CEDAW was part of the whole ‘justice’ dimension – our rights were not granted us as a result of the benign good nature of our government but because of the international campaigns for human rights set about into conventions by the United Nations and the European Union (with rulings such as by the Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg). These are some of the human rights instruments that we can use – even if we have to exhaust the domestic legal systems first. This is where we can hold our own government to account.

I felt hugely inadequate to the task in comparison – there was so much to take in. Even when we had contributed to the shadow report (credit to Sister of Frida member, Dr Armineh Soorenian) there were so many welfare reform changes to remember and so many cuts to disabled people services (without the disaggregated data) that we needed to prioritise and formulate as questions and recommendations to the CEDAW committee  .  We could have made a better case for disabled women if we had more experience in the procedures but then the essential fact was that we were there as disabled women and our presence were felt and many of the sister NGOs included disabled women in their presentations. A word of caution for disabled women taking part in these CEDAW sessions is the pace and pressure – as someone with a chronic fatigue syndrome (post polio) I had to withdraw from certain things.  It might have affected my temper too – I apologise unreservedly for the moments when it got a bit frayed.

–Eleanor Lisney

Stephanie Ortholeva‘s article – Women with Disabilities and the Justice System: Rights without Remedies    at the World Justice Project website is great in giving the whole access to justice issue a framework. She’s kindly allowed us to repost it here.

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One example of how society has come to view gender and disability is demonstrated by the iconographic historical symbol of justice, the blindfolded Lady Justice. In a creative book, “Representing Justice: Invention, Controversy, and Rights in City-States and Democratic Courtrooms”, Yale law professors Resnik and Curtis trace the philosophical uses of the symbol, “Blindness as a deficit presumes that sight is requisite to understanding, whereas blindness as an asset presumes that sight can corrupt judgment.”  This iconic image highlights the ongoing debates about the role of women with disabilities in the justice system.  Historically and to today, many legal systems restrict the legal capacity of women who are blind, as well as women with other disabilities, solely because of their disability.  This contrasts with that blind (or blinded) icon of justice, Lady Justice, seen as a symbol of rationality and even handedness.

International Normative Framework. 

The intersection between the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD), and the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW), both address legal capacity, access to justice, equal recognition before the law, gender and disability stereotyping, state due diligence obligations, among other issues. CRPD Article 6 adopts a gendered lens-recognizing the multiple and intersecting dimensions of women’s lives  and Article 12 requires equal recognition before the law, or legal capacity. Article 13 includes the right to access to justice, requiring States to provide procedural and age-appropriate accommodations, to facilitate effective participation.”  CEDAW Article 15 requires states to ensure that men and women have equal access to the legal system, ensuring legal autonomy.  Because women with disabilities have rights under both CEDAW and CRPD, State Parties have a due diligence obligation to afford them full and fair legal capacity, and access to the justice system.

Addressing Violence Through the Legal System. 

As noted in “Forgotten Sisters – A Report on Violence against Women with Disabilities:  & Overview of Its Nature, Scope, Causes & Consequences” authored by me and Professor Hope Lewis, violence against women with disabilities occurs in the home, community, perpetrated and/or condoned by the state and private institutions, and in the transnational sphere. Forms include physical, psychological, sexual, financial, entrapment, degradation, neglect, trafficking, detention, denial of health care, forced sterilization and psychiatric treatment, among others.  Women with disabilities are more likely to experience violence than non-disabled women, over a longer period, resulting in more severe injuries.  Their abuser may also be their caregiver; someone relied on for care or mobility.  In various ways the justice system itself (and therefore the state) perpetrates and/or condones the violence through various barriers.

Women with Disabilities as Witnesses. 

The justice system often fails to see women with disabilities as competent witnesses, a result of damaging stereotypes, or difficulties in communication without accommodations, as highlighted by the work of the Disability Discrimination Legal Service. The general failure of society to see women with disabilities as sexual beings and the tendency to “infantilize” them, while on the other hand, seeing women with mental disabilities as hypersexual and lacking self-control, results in their complaints or testimony being disregarded.

As noted by Benedet and Grant in “Hearing the Sexual Assault Complaints of Women with Mental Disabilities”, the mere fact that a woman has a disability, especially psycho-social or intellectual disabilities, or that she require assistive communication or accommodations, may result in the justice system viewing her as lacking credibility.  Judges may require more corroborating evidence when the witness is a woman with disabilities than in other cases, and prior mental health treatment may be used to discredit testimony. The complainant frequently does not serve as sole witness against the accused. Women with cognitive disabilities may have more difficulty with long term memory or remembering the sequence of events, which may make them appear less credible. Paternalistic attitudes may cause the legal system to view them as too fragile to withstand rigors of examination.

Exclusions of testimony are particularly problematic in gender-based violence and sexual assault cases, where the testimony of the parties and the credibility of the witnesses are exceptionally important, placing women with disabilities at even greater risk, since perpetrators may be more likely to attack them because they know that their complaints may be taken less seriously.  If prior complaints were dismissed, they are less likely to report abuse in the future, perpetuating the violence.

Forced Sterilization. 

Under the CRPD, forced, coerced or non-consensual sterilization is a violation of human rights, and women with disabilities have the right to retain fertility on an equal basis with others.  International Federation of Gynecology and Obstetrics Guidelines state that only women themselves can give ethically valid consent to their sterilization, and sterilization cannot be made a condition of access to medical care or other benefit.  Despite legal prohibitions, involuntary sterilization has long been used to restrict the fertility of some persons with disabilities, especially those with intellectual disabilities.

The failure of some countries to prohibit involuntary sterilization has been challenged before international tribunals.  In Gauer v France, at the European Court of Human Rights, a case was filed on behalf of five women who were sterilized without their consent as a form of contraception.  Sterilization also has been used as a technique for menstrual management, but it is rarely the only option and should not be done without informed consent.  Women with disabilities should have access to voluntary sterilization on an equal basis with others but not forced to undergo such procedures.

Discriminatory Termination of Parental Rights. 

Stereotypical views of women with psychosocial, intellectual or physical disabilities as “unfit” mothers may result in termination of parental rights by social service agencies or through divorce and child visitation and custody proceedings, especially when the other parent does not have a disability, according to the research of Lightfoot et al. in “The Inclusion of Disability as a Condition for Termination of Parental Rights.”  Fear of women with disabilities as parents persists, although evidence demonstrates that parents with disabilities are no more likely to maltreat children, or to raise so-called “defective” children than non-disabled parents.

Statutes in many countries on termination of parental rights, child custody and divorce include disability-related grounds for termination of parental rights or loss of custody, and may emphasize and focus on disability status rather than actual parenting skill or behavior, implicitly equating parental disability with parental unfitness.  Because of such legal definitions and societal prejudices, mothers with disabilities may be subjected to greater scrutiny by social service agencies than non-disabled women.  Fear of being incorrectly perceived as an unfit mother by a court on the basis of disability, and the breakdown of their relationship with children, has frequently discouraged mothers with disabilities from separating from an abusive partner.

The Disability and Parental Rights Legislative Change Project, University of Minnesota, “Guide for Creating Legislative Change” notes that in order to prevent disability discrimination, statutes should be free of discriminatory language; affirm that the statute cannot be used for disability discrimination; acknowledge that successful parenting can occur with accommodations; and require multidisciplinary approaches to address this situation.

These selected examples of limitations on access to justice for women with disabilities, and the ways in which the justice system itself violates their human rights, accentuates the urgent need to include issues of concern to women with disabilities in legal reform efforts addressing access to justice.

* This article is adapted from Stephanie Ortoleva & Hope Lewis: “Forgotten Sisters – A Report on Violence against Women with Disabilities:  & Overview of Its Nature, Scope, Causes & Consequences” (August 2012) and  Stephanie Ortoleva, “Inaccessible Justice:  Persons with Disabilities and the Legal System,” International Law Society of America, Journal of International and Comparative Law, 17 ILSA J. Int’l & Comp. L. 281 (Spring 2011), both of which can be accessed at:  http://ssrn.com/author=1875099.  

In the room where the CEDAW committee questions the UK government delegation.

On Day 3 (July 17th), the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women  considered the seventh periodic report of the United Kingdom on its implementation of the provisions of the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women.

This is the day we were building towards with the oral presentations, lunch presentations – we gave the CEDAW committee our concerns to help them formulate questions to the those representing the UK government – the panel was led by Helene Reardon-Bond, Director of Policy, Government Equalities Office. The delegation of the United Kingdom in the room included representatives of the Government Equalities Office, the Home Office, the Department of Health, the Department for Work and Pensions, the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, the Permanent Mission of the United Kingdom to the United Nations at Geneva, the Scottish Government, the Welsh Government and the Northern Ireland Executive.

Joining the discussion from London via video-conference were representatives from the Treasury Solicitors, the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, the Ministry of Justice, the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, the Department for Work and Pensions, the Department of Health, the Home Office, the Department for Communities and Local Governments, the Department for International Development, the Ministry of Defence, the Treasury, the Scottish Government, the Welsh Government and the Northern Ireland Executive.

It was a very long day from 10 am – 5pm with a break for lunch. The exchange of questions and responses do not have any input from NGOs but we did make some responses for example when Helene Reardon-Bond said there’s no evidence whatsoever to show that women are disproportionately affected by austerity measures – it was greeted with derisive laughter.

Some of the questions raised about or on issues impacting specifically on disabled women were:

– question on disabled women in politics (response given was on the available funding provided for by Access to Elected Office for Disabled People Fund and stats on people who had been awarded broken by gender difference – I didnt jot down the numbers in time)

– question on lack of employment opportunities for disabled women (response given was on the Disability Employment Strategy ? and how more funding would be given to Access to Work to help disabled get into and stay in employment)

– question about Universal Credit and how it could affect the dependence of women in domestic abuse (response was that payment exceptions may be possible, including the splitting of payments in specific situations of potential abuse. )

The last response might also apply, where disabled people are concerned, to carers of family situations?

Of course questions pertaining to access to justice, Legal Aid, residence requirements, domenstic violence have also relevance to disabled women in that disability intersects across gender issues.

Here is the UN Press Office  press release on the UK Government’s examination by CEDAW.

When the meeting was over we had to write a series of recommendations for the CEDAW committee to consider. We went off to do them according to our own expertise areas – we were to focus on the topics discussed unless there was some burning issues which were left out – these can be incorporated into the mentioned areas.

the UK delegation lead by Helene Reardon-Bond, (next to the chairperson)

Read also When cuts cost lives: women’s economic independence and domestic violence (Scarlet Harris, Touchstone Blog)

Opening statement to the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW)

Watch the videos (no captions and sound not brilliant)

thank you Charlotte Gage for links