Accelerating Efforts to Eliminate All Forms of Violence Against Women and Girls Preventing and Responding to All Forms of Violence Against Women and Girls with Disabilities

A/HRC/RES/47/15View PDF

Who adopted this document and its mandates?

A Resolution of the Human Rights Council, under agenda item 3 Promotion and protection of all human rights, civil, political, economic, social and cultural rights, including the right to development, published in 2021.

What subjects does this mandate have?

9 subjects

Administration of Justice Anti-Discrimination Measures Crime Prevention Gender Discrimination Gender-Based Violence Girls Human Rights Policy Persons with Disabilities Women's Rights

What’s in this document?

32 operative paragraphs

Expresses outrage at the persistence and pervasiveness of all forms of violence against women and girls worldwide;

Condemns in the strongest possible terms all forms of violence against women and girls, including women and girls with disabilities, and in the context of lockdown measures and school closures in response to the COVID-19 pandemic;

Expresses deep concern that all forms of discrimination and violence impair or nullify the full enjoyment by women and girls of their human rights and fundamental freedoms, which hinders the full, effective and meaningful participation and inclusion of women and girls with disabilities on an equal basis with others in the economic, social, cultural, civil and political spheres and is an impediment to achieving gender equality and the empowerment of all women and girls;

Stresses the need to strengthen efforts to empower women and girls with disabilities, enhance their participation and promote their leadership in society by taking measures to address all barriers that prevent or restrict their full and equal participation and inclusion in all spheres of life, including through the creation of enabling programmes, community outreach, mentoring and capacity-building programmes, to ensure their access, on an equal basis with others, to economic and financial resources and disability-inclusive and accessible social infrastructure, transportation, justice mechanisms and services, in particular in relation to health and education, as well as productive employment and decent work for women with disabilities, and to ensure that the priorities and rights of women and girls with disabilities are fully incorporated into policies and programmes and that they are closely consulted and actively involved in decision-making processes;

Also stresses the need to address multiple and intersecting forms of discrimination, which place women and girls at greater risk of exploitation, violence and abuse, and to implement measures to prevent and eliminate stereotypes based on disability, gender, age, race and xenophobia, ableism, stigma, negative social norms, attitudes and behaviours that cause or perpetuate discrimination and violence against women and girls;

Recognizes that a proactive multisectoral approach, working with all relevant stakeholders, including organizations of and led by persons with disabilities, is required to prevent, respond to and eliminate violence against women and girls with disabilities, including lifelong education, training and media campaigns that promote respect, dignity, accountability, equality, non-discrimination, inclusion and accessibility, as well as full and effective participation in political and public life and economic empowerment, social protection measures aimed at reducing poverty and financial dependence on other persons and measures aimed at deinstitutionalization and the promotion of independent living;

Calls upon States to take immediate and effective action to prevent and eliminate all forms of violence against women and girls by:

Fostering respect for the rights and dignity of persons with disabilities, promoting empowering portrayals of women and girls with disabilities and awareness-raising campaigns of their capabilities and contributions, and refraining from supporting or funding campaigns that perpetuate stigmatization or stereotyping of women and girls with disabilities;

Reviewing laws and policies that perpetuate the outdated understanding of disability present in charity and medical models and ableism, and incorporating a human rights-based approach to disability;

Developing, reviewing and strengthening inclusive policies, including by allocating adequate resources to address the historical, structural and underlying causes and risk factors of violence against women and girls, including violence motivated by xenophobia and religious intolerance, and ensuring that laws and policies are harmonized to address all forms of violence against women and girls, are inclusive of and accessible to women and girls with disabilities and are implemented in compliance with States’ international human rights obligations;

Implementing and allocating adequate resources to effective and evidence-based programmes and strategies with and for women and girls with disabilities, such as increasing access to assistive devices and technologies and community-based habilitation and rehabilitation services adapted to their requirements, in compliance with States’ international human rights obligations;

Ensuring the full, effective and meaningful participation and inclusion of women and girls, in their diverse contexts, including women and girls with disabilities on an equal basis with others, in decision-making processes and leadership roles and in the development and implementation of accessible and inclusive national policies, legislation, procedures, action plans, programmes, projects and strategies to prevent and eliminate violence against women and girls, and ensuring that such participation is conducted in a safe and accessible environment, including through support and capacity-building from organizations of and led by women, girls and other persons with disabilities, and through community outreach, mentoring and capacity-building programmes for women and girls with disabilities;

Ensuring that services and programmes designed to prevent and eliminate violence against women and girls are inclusive of and accessible to women and girls with disabilities, including by ensuring that facilities, services and information are accessible and by providing age- and gender-responsive, disability-inclusive and trauma-informed education and training to professionals, paid care workers and unpaid caregivers working to address the specific requirements of women with disabilities, including older women, and girls with disabilities;

Ensuring that social protection systems address the multiple, interrelated and complex causes of homelessness by preventing poverty, contributing to independent living in the community, health-related goals, gender and racial equality and decent work, and facilitating the inclusion of persons with disabilities;

Taking all appropriate measures to prevent and eliminate all forms of discrimination and violence against women and girls in situations of risk, including situations of armed conflict, humanitarian emergencies and the occurrence of natural disasters, with particular attention to the risks faced by and the specific requirements of women and girls with disabilities;

Developing and implementing educational programmes and teaching materials in accessible, affordable and alternative formats of communication, including easy to read and understand formats, that raise educators’ and learners’ awareness about violence against women and girls, including through evidence-based comprehensive sexuality education, consistent with the evolving capacities of the child, that explains consent, respect for boundaries, what constitutes unacceptable behaviour and how to report it, builds self-esteem and informed decision-making and communication skills, and promotes the development of respectful relationships based on gender equality, inclusion and human rights;

Developing and implementing national criminal justice legislation, policies, procedures and programmes that take into account the specific requirements of women and girls with disabilities, and promoting age- and gender-responsive and disability-inclusive measures in crime prevention and protection policies, including capacity-building for those involved in crime prevention, the justice system and informal restorative justice processes;

Supporting initiatives undertaken by, inter alia, international and non-governmental organizations, including women’s and girls’ rights organizations, organizations of and led by persons with disabilities, older women, girls and youth, civil society actors, the private sector, faith and community groups, religious leaders, politicians, journalists and other media workers, human rights defenders, including women and girl human rights defenders, indigenous peoples, local communities and other relevant actors, as part of their efforts to develop targeted and accessible responses, programmes and policies, including by allocating adequate financial resources, aimed at promoting gender equality and inclusion and eliminating violence against women and girls;

Also calls upon States to take immediate and effective action to respond to all forms of violence against women and girls and to support and protect all victims and survivors by:

Holding perpetrators to account and eliminating impunity for all forms of violence against women and girls;

Ensuring that legislation allows for the timely and effective investigation, prosecution, including ex officio prosecution, sanction and redress of violence against women and girls;

Adopting, strengthening and implementing legislation that expressly prohibits violence and provides adequate protection for all women and girls, including women and girls with disabilities, against all forms of violence, in public and private spheres, inter alia violence perpetrated online and offline by support providers, health-care providers, transportation providers and others in positions of authority, and caregivers, sexual harassment, domestic violence, intimate partner violence* and gender-related killings of women and girls, and ends impunity and adequately penalizes offences involving physical, sexual, psychological and economic violence occurring in families, in institutions, in digital contexts, in the world of work, in communities and carried out by support providers;

Guaranteeing equal recognition before the law of persons with disabilities, inter alia older women with disabilities, persons with disabilities belonging to minorities, including persons with disabilities of African and Asian descent, migrants with disabilities and indigenous persons with disabilities, and ensuring that they have the opportunity to exercise their legal capacity on an equal basis with others in all aspects of life, as recognized in article 12 of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities;

Ensuring access to justice and accountability mechanisms and timely and effective remedies for the effective implementation and enforcement of laws aimed at preventing and eliminating all forms of discrimination and gender-based violence, including by informing women and girls about their rights under relevant laws in an accessible way, providing procedural accommodation for women and girls with disabilities, improving legal infrastructure and mainstreaming age- and gender-responsive and disability-inclusive training into justice systems to ensure equality before the law and equal protection of women and girls with disabilities by the law;

Providing victims and survivors of violence with effective remedies, including victim- and survivor-centred and age- and gender-responsive legal, medical, psychological and confidential counselling services and legal protection that avoid revictimization and retraumatization and are inclusive of and accessible to women and girls with disabilities, and providing support services, information and education in accessible formats, including on how to prevent, recognize and report instances of exploitation, violence and abuse in any setting;

Fully integrating a human rights perspective into mental health, psychosocial support and community services, and adopting, implementing, updating, strengthening or monitoring, as appropriate, existing laws, policies and practices with a view to protecting the personal integrity of persons with disabilities and eliminating all forms of discrimination, stigma, stereotypes, prejudice, violence, abuse, social exclusion, segregation, unlawful or arbitrary deprivation of liberty on the basis of disability, and institutionalization, and overmedicalization within that context, and promoting the right of persons with psychosocial disabilities to live independently, to full inclusion and effective participation in society, to decide upon matters affecting them and to have their dignity respected on an equal basis with others;

Ensuring that sexual and reproductive health and reproductive rights are fully realized, including for victims and survivors of sexual and gender-based violence, by addressing the social and other determinants of health, removing barriers, developing and enforcing policies, good practices and legal frameworks, and strengthening health systems that make quality comprehensive sexual and reproductive health-care services, information and education universally accessible and available and inclusive;

Repealing legislation and regulatory provisions that restrict legal capacity or permit forced sterilization, forced abortion and forced contraception and ensuring that any medical procedure or intervention is performed with due regard for the right to respect for physical and mental integrity on an equal basis with others and to bodily autonomy and is not performed without the free and informed consent of women and girls with disabilities;

Strengthening or establishing systems to regularly collect, analyse and publish statistical data disaggregated by sex, age, disability and other relevant characteristics on all forms of violence against women and girls, and using these data to inform more effective efforts across all sectors to prevent and respond to violence, while respecting human rights principles, including participation, transparency, privacy and accountability;

Urges States to prevent and respond to the increase in violence against women and girls, including those with disabilities, amid the COVID-19 pandemic by integrating accessible and inclusive prevention, response and protection systems into any pandemic response and recovery plans, including through strengthened law enforcement, justice and social protection measures for victims and survivors of violence, designating and expanding the accessibility and capacity of shelters, services and safe spaces for victims and survivors of violence as essential services and increasing resources for them, in collaboration with civil society, including organizations of and led by women and girls with disabilities, and communities, promoting deinstitutionalization and preventing institutionalization, strengthening age- and gender-responsive and disability-inclusive advocacy and awareness-raising campaigns to address violence against women and girls, including during lockdowns, providing safe and equitable access to vaccination for women and girls with disabilities and ensuring their participation in the development and implementation of pandemic response and recovery plans;

Welcomes the annual full-day discussion on the human rights of women, and requests the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights to prepare a summary report in accessible formats on the annual discussion held at the present session, and to present the report to the Human Rights Council at its fiftieth session, to prepare a summary report in accessible formats on the annual discussion to be held at its fiftieth session and to present the report at its fifty-third session, and to make the annual discussion on the human rights of women fully accessible to persons with disabilities;

Decides to continue its consideration of the issue of the elimination of all forms of violence against women and girls as a matter of high priority, in conformity with its programme of work, at its fifty-third session.

Who adopted this document and its mandates?

What subjects does this mandate have?

What’s in this document?

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