DPI-AP / Resources / Reports 2007 / Rights of Women with Disabilities

To ensure the rights of Women with Disabilities are protected under the Convention

Dear Colleagues,

We are writing from the United Nations in New York, where DPI is engaged in treaty negotiations in the Ad Hoc Committee (AHC) on the U.N. Convention on the Rights and Dignity of Persons with Disabilities. As part of this process, the Women's Caucus of the International Disability Caucus (co-chaired by DPI Vice-chair of Human Rights, Dinah Radtke, and Mijoo Kim of Korea's Women with Disabilities Arts and Cultural Network) has been working hard to ensure the rights of women with disabilities are protected under the Convention.

The Women's Caucus continues to feel strongly that a twin-track approach to protecting women's rights in this Convention is essential. We have been asking for a separate article, as well as mainstreaming gender issues in relevant articles throughout the treaty. Mainstreaming will ensure that current issues specific to women with disabilities are addressed in the Convention articles, and a separate article will ensure that any new issues arising in future years can also be addressed.

States Parties involved in the AHC discussions on the Convention are still undecided as to which approach to use, i.e. a separate article, mainstreaming, inclusion in the article on General Obligations,[1] or the twin-track approach that we are promoting. We need your support to convince national governments worldwide to agree to the twin-track approach.

We ask you to please write your national government and request that they instruct their delegations to the AHC meetings to support the position of the IDC Women's Caucus and DPI. Time is of the essence, and we ask that you send off your letters as soon as possible. Please also send this information to other disability organizations in your country, as well as to any women's organizations you may know of, and invite them to support this initiative.

You may visit DPI's website at:
http://v1.dpi.org/lang-en/resources/topics_detail?page=472

to access the draft text proposed by the Women's Caucus, and
http://v1.dpi.org/lang-en/resources/topics_detail?page=446

to review DPI's legal background paper on the issue ("Gendering the Draft Comprehensive and Integral International Convention on the Protection and Promotion of the Rights and Dignity of Persons with Disabilities").

We provide a sample letter below, and invite you to copy it onto your letterhead and send it off, or to use it as a guide for your own letter if you wish.

Thank you so much for your support of women with disabilities and DPI.

Sincerely,

Mary Ennis
Executive Director

(date)

(government leader)

(address)

Dear (name):

Our organization is closely monitoring negotiations of the Ad Hoc Committee (AHC) on the U.N. Convention on the Rights and Dignity of Persons with Disabilities currently underway at the United Nations in New York.

Women with disabilities have historically been marginalized, abused and discriminated against. This U.N. Convention is an excellent opportunity to reverse this treatment. It is critical that the rights and unique issues of women with disabilities be addressed and enshrined within this historic convention.

We are writing, therefore, to urge you to instruct your delegation to the AHC negotiations to support the position of the International Disability Caucus' Women's Caucus on use of a 'twin-track' approach, to ensure that the rights of women with disabilities are enshrined in the Convention. This approach would involve the drafting of a separate article on women with disabilities, as well as mainstreaming of relevant issues in articles throughout the Convention.

Indeed, women with disabilities across the globe, through community-based consultations and discussions on the Convention, have been asking for the Ad Hoc Committee to adopt a twin-track approach to issues specific to women with disabilities. Mainstreaming will ensure that current issues specific to women with disabilities are addressed in the Convention articles. A separate article will ensure that any new issues that arise in future years can also be addressed.

We thank you for considering our appeal, and hope that you will join other governments in taking a stand for the rights of women with disabilities in our country and around the world.

Sincerely,

[1] The purpose of an article on "general obligations" is to describe, in general terms, how governments must implement the treaty/convention. For example, it requires parties to the convention to change their national legislation so that it complies with the convention. Some governments have suggested that the article on general obligations contain a brief provision requiring parties to consider the needs of women with disabilities when they implement the convention. The Women's Caucus supports this suggestion, but feels that issues of women with disabilities should also be addressed in other relevant articles, as well as in a brief article specifically on women with disabilities.