Facts and figures: Women and girls with disabilities

Leadership and political participation

• Women with disabilities are severely underrepresented in decision-making: While both women and men with disabilities are underrepresented, evidence from 19 countries in 2017 shows that only 2.3 per cent of women with disabilities, compared to 2.8 per cent of men with disabilities, held a position as a legislator, senior official, or manager. According to 2017 data, in 14 out of 18 countries in Asia and the Pacific region, there was no female parliamentarian with disabilities in the national legislative body. In the other four countries, the share of women parliamentarians with disabilities ranged from 0.3 to 6.3 per cent [1].
• Women with disabilities are underrepresented in national coordination mechanisms on disability matters: Across 17 countries and territories from the Asia and the Pacific region in 2017, organizations of persons with disabilities included nearly twice as many men as women, representing 21 per cent and 12 per cent of all mechanisms respectively. In other types of organizations, men were similarly overrepresented, making up to 43 per cent of membership versus 24 per cent for women [2].
• Women with disabilities are underrepresented in gender equality institutions: In 7 of those same 17 countries, national machineries for gender equality included no women with disabilities among their membership, and in the remaining five countries, only 9 per cent of members were women with disabilities [3].
• Fewer women lead organizations of persons with disabilities: Social media data analysed in 2017 indicated that 42 per cent of women, versus 58 per cent of men, held leadership positions in Spanish-speaking organizations working on disability issues or in collaboration with persons with disabilities [4].

Violence against women with disabilities

• Women with disabilities are at least two to three times more likely than other women to experience violence, including by family, intimate partners, caregivers, and institutional facilities [5].

Education

• Compared to men without disabilities, women with disabilities are three times more likely to be illiterate [6].

Employment

• Compared to men without disabilities, women with disabilities are two times less likely to be employed [7].

Health care

• Compared to men without disabilities, women with disabilities are three times more likely to have unmet needs for health care [8].