Women with disabilities remain excluded from leadership, including in institutions meant to represent them

Women with disabilities face some of the steepest barriers to leadership and decision-making. Intersecting forms of discrimination limit their access to education, employment, leadership opportunities and public life. Globally, only 23 per cent of women with disabilities are employed, compared to 34 per cent of men with disabilities, 46 per cent of women without disabilities and 67 per cent of men without disabilities. These disparities reduce access to professional experience, networks and resources that support advancement into decision-making roles. Across 25 countries and areas, only 3 per cent of employed women with disabilities work as legislators, senior officials or managers, compared to 4 per cent of women without disabilities. Women with disabilities are less likely to hold these positions in 20 of 25 countries and areas, with the gap exceeding 5 percentage points in some.

The exclusion of women with disabilities extends into public institutions responsible for policies and programmes that affect their lives. Article 6 of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) recognizes the multiple discrimination faced by women and girls with disabilities, and the CRPD Committee's General Comment No. 3 (2016) further calls for their meaningful participation in political, public, and policy-making life[1]. Yet they are poorly represented in national coordination mechanisms on disability, which oversee policy and programme development, implementation and monitoring. While global data are unavailable, research on 14 countries and areas in Asia and the Pacific provides a glimpse of this underrepresentation. Women with disabilities accounted for only 6 per cent of members, on average, compared with 15 per cent for men with disabilities, 31 per cent for women without disabilities and 48 per cent for men without disabilities. In six countries, no women with disabilities were represented in national coordination mechanisms. Closing this gap calls for systematically including women with disabilities in decision-making bodies, backed by adequate resources, accessibility measures and accountability mechanisms.