Access to Justice for Women and Girls with Disabilities
Women and girls with disabilities are excluded from legal protection at a much higher rate – as compared with non-disabled women and men with disabilities. Women and girls with disabilities are also less likely to report being victims of violence.
Even when it is possible to access the justice system, women and girls with disabilities are more likely to have their credibility questioned because of the double discrimination from sexism and ableism.
Women and girls with disabilities face barriers to accessing justice that include, but are not limited to:
- Laws and policies that fail to protect women and girls with disabilities from violations of specific rights, such as domestic violence, sexual harassment, child marriage, forced sterilization, as well as neglect or infringement of the rights relating to legal capacity;
- Lack of legal literacy programmes designed to enable women and girls with disabilities to understand their rights and how the legal system works;
- Lack of availability of national/local sign language interpreting services and support for alternative modes of communication throughout the justice system for those who communicate differently;
- Inaccessible buildings, such as police departments, witness stands, and legal aid offices;
- Inaccessible and unaffordable public transportation services to access the judiciary system and legal aid services;
- Lack of disability-sensitive and trauma-sensitive education for first responders (for example, police officers, healthcare professionals, and helpline support workers) on how to respond to and support women and girls with disabilities who have experienced violence;
- Fear of stigma and a worse threat to personal safety arising from reporting of rights violation;
- Poverty, lack of financial autonomy and inability to afford the expenses of accessing justice.
Access to justice for women and girls with disabilities is intertwined with other rights — those include the right to:
- Access information and knowledge;
- Access economic opportunities and remunerated employment;
- Communication in a preferred language and format;
- Education;
- Health;
- Autonomy, including bodily autonomy, financial autonomy and legal autonomy;
- Accessibility: physical (including that of the built environment, street environment, public transport systems), digital and services;
- Independent living,
- Social protection;
- Social and political participation.
If the rights mentioned above are not upheld, at the same time, access to justice for women and girls with disabilities will not be effectively realised. This also deprives society of the contributions of women and girls with disabilities to justice administration.
Resources
*Note: Resources linked are in English and website or PDF format, unless stated otherwise.
Closing the Justice Gap for Women with Intellectual and/or Psychosocial Disabilities by UN Women – Asia-Pacific
- This page includes findings of the surveys on legal needs in Nepal, Fiji, the Philippines, and Indonesia, of women with intellectual and psychosocial disabilities.
Access to Justice for Women with Intellectual and Psychosocial Disabilities in Asia and the Pacific by UN Women – Asia Pacific
- This brief analyses key barriers and proposes targeted actions to close the justice gap. It was developed under the “Enhancing Access to Justice for Women in Asia and the Pacific” Programme jointly implemented by UN Women, the International Commission of Jurists and OHCHR.
The Importance of Designing Gender and Disability Inclusive Laws: A Survey of Legislation in 190 Economies (Global Indicators Briefs No. 11) by Julia Constanze Braunmiller and Marie Dry, World Bank Group
- This brief presents data collected by the World Bank’s Women, Business, and the Law project on the legal barriers that women with disabilities face when accessing economic opportunities in 190 economies. The new data suggest that only one-quarter of economies worldwide explicitly protect and promote the rights of women with disabilities.
Access to Justice for Women and Girls with Disabilities by Women Enabled International
Women, disability and violence: Creating access to justice by Australia’s National Research Organisation for Women’s Safety (ANROWS)
Empowering the Voices of Women and Girls with Disabilities Towards a Just Society by Disability Rights Fund
Analytical Report: Access to Justice for Women and Girls with Disabilities by Terre Des Hommes Foundation
Country Documentation
(listed in alphabetical order of country name)
Cambodia
The Prevalence and Psychological Costs of Household Violence by Family Members Against Women with Disabilities in Cambodia by Jill Astbury and Fareen Walji, in Journal of Interpersonal Violence, 2014
Triple Jeopardy_Gender-based violence and human rights violations expreienced by women with disabilities in Cambodia by Jill Astbury and Fareen Walji, AusAID Research Working Paper 1, January 2013
Indonesia
Women with Psychosocial Disabilities are Vulnerable to Experience Multiple Violence by Sonya Hellen SINOMBOR, 18 December 2023
Legal Mobilisation by Women with Disabilities in Indonesia by Yogi Paramitha Dewi, in Asia-Pacific Journal on Human Rights and the Law, February 2023
- This article addresses the question of how Indonesian women with disabilities mobilise existing legal and institutional resources to pursue empowerment.
The Forgotten Women: Alternative Report to the CEDAW Committee on the Situation of Women with Psychosocial Disabilities in Indonesia, by Perhimpunan Jiwa Sehat (PJS)-Indonesian Mental Health Association (IMHA), 2021
- This document summarizes the results of a legal needs survey of women with intellectual and/or psychosocial disabilities in Indonesia, and provides recommendations on how to improve their justice journeys.