Women with disabilities face multiple discrimination, abuse: UN Women

Women and girls with disabilities face multiple and intersecting levels of exclusion, discrimination, abuse and marginalisation, Programme Analyst at UN Women Country Focal Point-sri Lanka, Ramaaya Salgado said.

She said therefore, women with disabilities often confront additional disadvantages as compared to men with disabilities or other women.

Ms. Salgado expressed these views at the launch of the report on “Women with Disabilities and Their Access to Economic Opportunities: Through the Lens of Gender Budgets” on Thursday.

The report was launched by UN Women together with the Women & Child Affairs Ministry and the Embassy of the Republic of Korea.

In a statement, the Korean Embassy said the study is the first of its kind in Sri Lanka to use a gender budgeting framework to examine government plan, policies and budgets and its impact on women with disabilities.

“In this study, 400 persons with disabilities covering 4 districts were surveyed on difficulties faced in entering and remaining in the labour force. Evidence shows that they encounter multiple barriers in access to economic opportunities and women with disabilities are twice as disadvantaged. A gender budget study was also conducted to reveal gaps in programmatic and budgetary commitments, despite several policies and legislation promoting the rights of persons with disabilities,” it said.

In his address, Ambassador of the Republic of Korea to Sri Lanka, Heon Lee, stressed the importance of national budgets for gender equality.

“This research study is vital because not only does it look at why these gaps exist, but it also examines how national programmes and most importantly, national budgets can promote women with disabilities’ access to more inclusive and accessible employment and livelihood opportunities,” he said.

He cited good practices implemented by the Republic of Korea, which included development of “a Gender Budget Statement analysing the impact of the National Budget on women and men”.

To support this endeavour, the report provides a set of recommendations to create an inclusive, accessible and enabling social environment to ensure women with disabilities enjoy equal rights and opportunities.

It calls for a thorough review of the National Action Plan for Disability from a gender perspective to ensure that indicators are genderresponsive and the targets are sex-disaggregated. Further to that, the report recommends that gender-sensitive key performance indicators in Budget Call Circulars should be expanded to include disability dimensions wherever relevant.

Gender-responsive budgeting (GRB) brings together two domains which are not commonly linked together: gender equality and public financial management. Globally, gender budgeting has emerged as a strategy that ensures inclusive and efficient use of state resources through better development planning and focused allocations. Good policies and budgets should have an equal impact on women and men, across diverse groups.

More than 90 countries have engaged in GRB worldwide, of which 65 are supported by UN Women. In the Asia-pacific region alone, about 29 countries have initiated GRB work (UN Women, 2015).