General Comment No. 3 on women and girls with disabilities

CRPD General Comment No. 3 places disabled women’s autonomy and political participation within institutional duties of equality and protection from violence. Gender policy can assume women have no disabilities, while disability policy treats its subjects as ungendered. CRPD General Comment No. 3 addresses these intersecting omissions. Distributed on November 25, 2016, it interprets the obligations under Article 6 of the disability rights convention.

Intersectional discrimination is not simple addition

The document distinguishes multiple from intersectional discrimination. Gender, disability and other positions can produce circumstances that cannot be addressed separately. A service nominally open to women may remain inaccessible through its transport, communication or consent arrangements.

Legal capacity, sexual and reproductive health, education, violence and public participation belong within the same analysis. Women with disabilities are not simply recipients of care: they must be able to decide about treatment, relationships and the services they need. Support for making a decision differs from allowing a guardian or institution to replace that decision.

Protection can become control

Describing all disabled women as inherently vulnerable can authorize segregation, coercive intervention and lost choices. The document’s criticism of practices including forced sterilization requires bodily autonomy to remain part of safety. Participation involves accessible information, representative organizations and influence over policy, not a single consultation.

This is an interpretation of rights and obligations, not proof that a country has implemented them or a substitute for current procedures in an individual dispute. Recognizing difference should improve support rather than collapse diverse needs into one experience.

The ten principles of disability justice offer a comparison with movement accounts of interdependence and collective access. A study of disabled women’s reproductive experiences in Zimbabwe situates autonomy within specific health services and family relations. Together they ask whether acting in someone’s interests increases her capacity to express and realize her own decisions.