COMMITTEE ON THE ELIMINATION OF DISCRIMINATION AGAINST WOMEN
64th Session ( 04 July - 22 July 2016)
Submission by the Philippine Alliance of Women with Disabilities
for consideration in the review of the State Party of the Republic of the Philippines
This submission aims to provide information from the civil society organizations of the Philippine disability movement to the combined 7th and 8th State report submitted by the Philippine government to the
Convention on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women Committee, as well as its Reply to the
List of Issues. It includes comments on Articles 2-8, and 10-16 of the Convention and draws primarily
from information gathered in the monitoring activities connected with the Convention on the Rights of
Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) by the Philippine Coalition on the CRPD,1 and by the Philippine Alliance of Women with Disabilities, culling from the collective experiences on the ground of Filipino women with disabilities as well as their organizations and partners.
The Philippines ratified the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) in 1981 and the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) in 2008.
Given the intersection of human rights standards of the CEDAW and the CRPD in considering the rights
of women and girls with disabilities, this submission shall refer to pertinent principles and provisions of
the CEDAW, as well as the CRPD.
Building on the information and issues highlighted by this Alliance in its submission for the List of Issues, this document aims to provide three kinds of inputs: (1) further comments on the State reply to a
particular issue from the Committee’s List of Issues2; (2) information on recent developments on the implementation of this Convention and other points relevant to the List of Issues since the submission by
this Alliance of its contribution in October 2015; and (3) additional citations in the context of the Committee’s particular General Recommendations that are relevant to women and girls with disabilities.
When appropriate as well, we also mention mandates from the CRPD on women and girls with disabilities.
The extensive citations from the sector of deaf women and girls in this submission, for instance in access
to justice for victims of violence reflects the enormous efforts by CSOs in attempting to overcome glaring gaps of State data and services. Other impairment constituencies as of yet do not have any such efforts and so their particular situations remain largely covert.
Women and girls with disabilities in the Philippines
Of the 92.1 million household population recorded by the Philippine 2010 Census, over 1.4 million are
persons with disabilities, and of this, females with disabilities comprised 49.1%, or over 707,0003.
The discrimination that Filipino women and girls with disabilities face is due to the complexity brought
on by intersecting dimensions of gender and disability, and further, with age, ethnicity or other factors.
The layers of multiple discrimination and difference in treatment are in relation to non-disabled women
and girls, men and boys in general, as well as specifically, to men and boys with disabilities. This multiple discrimination is the root of the largely invisible nature of women and girls with disabilities. Because
1
Philippine Coalition on the U.N. Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. A Parallel Report submitted
to the Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities on the implementation of the Convention in the Republic
of the Philippines from 2008-2013. The Philippines has yet to be reviewed by the CRPD Committee.
2
CEDAW_C_PHL_Q_7-8_22448_E
3
2010 Census. Philippines Statistics Authority.
1