Transcript of Talk by Julia Constanze Braunmiller

Talking Points Julia Braunmiller, World Bank Group

Towards Inclusive Societies: Making Data and Statistics Disability- and Gender-Inclusive: Launch of the 2022 Disability Data Initiative’s Report

Side Event, Conference of State Parties

Thank you so much for the opportunity to present our research, how gender and disability inclusion is addressed in policy and legal frameworks.

The World Bank’s Women, Business and the Law (WBL) project measures laws and regulations across 190 economies and how they impact women’s lives and careers. We know that laws can promote or hinder women’s economic participation, because women face different constraints compared to men across their working life, this starts with their mobility, continues through marriage and parenthood, their decision to join the workplace or open a business, and up until receiving a pension.
And what we have continuously seen is that the law matters for women’s economic empowerment outcomes: in countries with more gender equal laws, more women work, and they are better paid.
Our data measures these laws and is now available for 52 years, showing legal reforms across all the 190 countries that we measure, from 1970 until today.
However, in order for our data to be comparable across these 190 countries, the indicators rely on standardized assumptions, including that the woman in question is “non-disabled.” This is a limitation of our methodology and that’s why we started a new line of research, how laws and policies promote or hinder the socio-economic inclusion of women with disabilities.

- We know that women with disabilities face multiple or “intersectional” discrimination compared to men with and without disabilities. For example, national statistics show that the employment rates of women with disabilities are the lowest compared to men with disabilities and non-disabled men and women. And women with disabilities face gender-based violence at much higher rates than non-disabled women.
- So we have included 11 new questions across 4 areas in the Women, Business and the Law data collection:
  - Nondiscrimination and the mention of intersectional and multiple discrimination in the law
  - Parental rights
  - Inclusive labor markets
  - And violence and sexual harassment against women with disabilities
- By means of background: This work started as one of the World Bank Group’s 10 Commitments on Disability-Inclusive Development.
- Note that our research methodology is based on international standards, most notably the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities.

For example, we have done an assessment, whether the disability laws that we measure are in line with international standards. Preliminary analysis shows that 74 out of the 157 countries worldwide that have a disability rights law use the social model of disability. That is less than half!

Legal Recognition of Multiple Discrimination of Women with Disabilities:

So the first part of the research is the recognition of the rights of women with disabilities in gender equality and disability rights laws.

- Why is the legal recognition of multiple discrimination important? For example, when accessing remedies in a discrimination case, when multiple discrimination is not recognized, a plaintiff has to choose one protected ground upon which to bring their claim. But when multiple discrimination is recognized by law, then the entirety of the discriminatory act and experience can be heard by the court.
- But we find that only one-fourth of economies worldwide explicitly recognize multiple discrimination on the basis of disability and gender.

Our preliminary assessment shows the following: While 86 countries around the world have a gender equality or nondiscrimination law, only 30 of these specifically mention the rights of women with disabilities. And while 157 countries have a disability rights law, only 52 mention women with disabilities. Strikingly, only 10 economies have mentions of women with disabilities in both legal instruments. For example, Austria; El Salvador; the Republic of Korea; Turkey; and Zambia.

These significant gaps are not surprising. Disability rights advocates have noted for decades that instances of multiple discrimination are often ignored. On the one hand, gender equality laws do not account for the particular needs of women with disabilities, and on the other hand, disability rights frameworks often overlook women’s needs.

Family and Parental Rights of Women with Disabilities:

With the next three slides, in the interest of time, I would like to give you just a very quick overview over the additional topics that our research addresses.
The first one being parental rights. Here, we assessed whether the law provides support to women with disabilities in the exercise of their parental rights and responsibilities.
Interesting examples are financial aid for mothers with disabilities and extended maternity leave.
This comes from the fact that persons with disabilities have been subjected to a long history of exclusion from reproductive and parental rights. Forced sterilization has been performed against many women and girls with disabilities throughout history and continues to occur around the globe. In addition, mothers with a disability are often stripped off their parental or custody rights.

We have found different types of aid that can be provided by law:
- Financial aid
- A nondiscrimination provision for custody rights
- Extended maternity leave rights
- Mandates for specific attention to be given to women with disabilities in maternal healthcare

Labor Market Inclusion of Women with Disabilities

The next topic is labor market inclusion for women with disabilities. Here, we are looking at reasonable accommodation policies and employment incentives.

The preliminary findings of these questions again show how rare it is to find intersectional language in legislation.

While 111 countries have a reasonable accommodation mandate either in law or policy, only 6 of these have a specific mention of women with disabilities in relation to this right to reasonable accommodation.
Also, while we found 120 countries some incentives for businesses in the private sector to hire persons with disabilities could be found, only 5 of these incentives specifically mention women with disabilities.

Protection of Women with Disabilities from Violence and Harassment:

And the final topic is: Violence against women. Specifically, we are looking at protection for women with disabilities against domestic violence and sexual harassment in employment.
This is especially important. Studies indicate that women with disabilities are sexually assaulted at a rate at least twice that of the general population of women and endure other forms of gender-based violence – including at the hands of their caregivers. In addition, we have heard from Sophie and Jackie about attitudes towards domestic violence against women with disabilities.
However, women with disabilities face particular difficulties accessing services for survivors.
We have found in our preliminary research that out of the 160 countries that have a law prohibiting domestic violence, 51 explicitly address women with disabilities. Only 17 of these domestic violence laws establish accessibility to services, for example, mandating that shelters are accessible.
Further, out of the 138 countries which prohibit sexual harassment in employment, only 29 economies explicitly recognize the protection of women with disabilities against sexual harassment in employment.

Availability of the Women, Business and the Law Data & Publication of Research

I’d like to end with a few remarks how you can use our data.
As mentioned, this is very new pilot research, and we are now in the final stages of the publication of our first paper. You will be able to download it from our website along with the underlying data shortly.
And to get to our website, please take out your phones and scan this QR code or type https://wbl.worldbank.org/en/disability into your browser.
Our goal with this research is to build on the experience of the Women, Business and the Law project which has consistently shown that women’s rights are smart economics – countries with gender-equality under the law also show better development outcomes. We are aiming to make a similar case for women with disabilities, to encourage legal reform and evidence-based policymaking.
If you are interested, please do get in touch with me and I’ll gladly follow up with you and will share the data and research as soon as it is published.