The image is in two parts. On the left is the black and white “Make the Right Real in Malaysia” logo of The OKU Rights Matter website. To the right of the logo is a photo: Beatrice Leong, Malaysian woman documentary filmmaker, stands in front of her community at the Autistic Pride Day Get-Together, Taman Tugu, June 2023. Beatrice, with a neat black fringe over her eyes and hair swept up in a top curl, is dressed in a black polo shirt and khaki pants. Beatrice holds a white placard with handwritten text (black font): I AM AUTISTIC (Very large font size) ALSO A WOMAN (the remaining text in large font) A FEMINIST AN ACTIVIST A HUMAN

Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights of Women and Girls with Disabilities

Women and girls with disabilities have the same sexual and reproductive health (SRH) needs and rights as women and girls without disabilities. However, women and girls with disabilities face widespread negative stereotyping and discrimination in exercising their right to sexual and reproductive health.

Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights of Women and Girls with Disabilities

Women and girls with disabilities have the same sexual and reproductive health (SRH) needs and rights as women and girls without disabilities.

Sexual and reproductive health and rights mean that women and girls are entitled to:

  • Bodily autonomy;
  • Safe relationships;
  • Safe sex with joy;
  • Freedom from sexual violence and coercion;
  • Use contraception;
  • Get pregnant and have the necessary support for safe pregnancy;
  • Have access to information in formats and languages that they understand about the abovementioned matters, as well as prevention and treatment of sexually-transmitted disease.

However, women and girls with disabilities face widespread negative stereotyping and discrimination.  Information and services for meeting sexual and reproductive health needs are not disability-inclusive in design and delivery. There is no consideration of the rights of women and girls with disabilities to reasonable accommodation in obstetrics and gynaecology services, particularly regarding access and communication in alternative formats and languages.  These barriers – attitudinal, physical, digital, information and communication – make it a challenge for most women and girls with disabilities to be physically and appropriately covered by services needed for ensuring sexual and reproductive health and wellbeing.  

Stigma and discrimination are worse for women and girls with multiple disabilities, intellectual disabilities, psychosocial disabilities, and those who are deaf, deaf-blind or autistic.

Common misconceptions about women and girls with disabilities include those below, they:

  • Are disabled and thus are unattractive, of low value and even worthless;
  • Are asexual, disinterested in sexuality and sex, cannot be sexually active, and have no desire to be in an intimate relationship;
  • Cannot control their sexual urges;
  • Have no understanding of sexuality and sex, need not learn what these mean and about safe sex;
  • Cannot make decisions about their own bodies, as well as sexual and reproductive lives;
  • Should not embark on relationships and try to start families of their own;
  • Are not capable of conceiving and parenting children.

In the face of such misconceptions, women and girls with disabilities are denied access to information about sexual and reproductive health.  The absence of reasonable accommodation in comprehensive sexual and reproductive health education programmes and family planning counselling excludes women and girls with disabilities. The misconceptions also cause women and girls with disabilities to be at a greater risk of physical, emotional/psychosocial and sexual abuse.

In many countries, women and girls with disabilities, particularly those with intellectual and psychosocial disabilities, are subjected to forced sterilisation. This means imposing a medical procedure on women and girls with disabilities, without ensuring their prior informed consent, making it impossible for conception and pregnancy to occur.  Forced sterilisation is a means resorted to for preventing pregnancy and eliminating menstruation.

Women and girls with disabilities are also subjected to forced abortion.  Forced abortion has roots in eugenics-based concerns that women and girls with disabilities will give birth to “defective” children.

Both forced sterilisation and forced abortion are also linked with misconception of disabled women’s parenting abilities.

Resources

*Note: Resources linked are in English and website or PDF format, unless stated otherwise.

UNFPA at the Global Disability Summit 2025

Report on sexual and reproductive health and rights of girls and young women with disabilities (easy read version available) by the UN Special Rapporteur on the rights of persons with disabilities, 14 July 2017

Reproductive Rights and Women with Disabilities: A Human Rights Framework by the Center for Reproductive Rights, New York, USA, January 2002

Disability Rights and SRHR: An Intersectional Approach to Ending VAW, arrow, vol. 28, no. 1, 2022

Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights of Women and Girls with Disabilities Facts by Women Enabled International, USA

Take Charge! A Reproductive Health Guide for Women with Disabilities by The Empowered Fe Fes, USA, April 2015

Technical brief: understanding how to support teachers in the Asia-Pacific Region to deliver disability-inclusive comprehensive sexuality education by UNESCO and Leonard Cheshire (UK), 2022

Restoring Dignity: Crafting Inclusive Humanitarian Support in the Asia-Pacific by AT2030

Real Talk

Real Talk is –

  • ⁠A sexual health initiative aimed at people living with cognitive disabilities.
  • ⁠Funded by the Public Health Agency of Canada to provide free professional development courses to community service workers, residential care workers, and other professionals supporting people with cognitive disabilities in Metro Vancouver.

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