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Publications : ILO Publications : Integrating Women and Girls with Disabilities into Mainstream Vocational Training 1
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"Despite their significant numbers, women and girls
with disabilities, especially in the developing countries (in the
Asian and Pacific Region), remain hidden and silent, their concerns
unknown and their rights overlooked. Throughout the region, in urban
and rural communities alike, they have to face the major problems of
triple discrimination by society: not only because of their
disabilities, but also because they are female and poor."
– Hidden Sisters: Women and Girls with Disabilities in the Asian and Pacific Region |
". . . I want to be like others . . ." - a woman disabled by cerebral palsy |
This is the aspiration of every disabled woman – to be able to have friends, to go to school, to have the qualifications and skills for a good job and then do the job well, to be independent, to be respected, to give and receive love. In other words, they want to have a life like other women.
But most women with disabilities cannot live like others. They are more likely to:Women with disabilities are disadvantaged by negative attitudes towards disability.
Like all other disabled people, women with disabilities are often treated as if their particular disability has affected all their other abilities. In society’s eyes they are not capable of earning an income, let alone of living independently.Women with disabilities are disadvantaged because women’s work is seen as secondary to men’s.
A woman’s main role, in most communities, is still to be a wife, mother, and homemaker while the man is the main decision-maker and incomeearner. Since education and vocational training are seen as investments for higher-value employment, a woman is less likely to have the opportunity to receive them. While public attitudes are changing, illiteracy rates among women worldwide are falling, and more and more women are entering the labour market, the situation has changed little for women with disabilities. The general attitude is still that a disabled woman has little hope of becoming a wife or a mother, or of getting a real job. She therefore is a burden to her family or the state – a dependant for the rest of her life.Women with disabilities are disadvantaged by poverty.
Excluded from opportunities, disabled women are on the whole desperately poor. While poverty is a result of discrimination, it is also a cause of further discrimination. Poverty is the lack of resources: not just money, but also skills, knowledge, and social connections. Without those resources, disabled women have very limited access to institutions, services, markets, and employment.The extensive discrimination against women with disabilities violates the principle of equality of rights and their human dignity. They are denied equal opportunities in social, economic, and political life. The specially difficult situation of women with disabilities has been recognized nationally and internationally. However, there is as yet not enough action or results, at least to the extent that women with disabilities everywhere are able to experience a tangible improvement in their lives.
Where disabled women have been given opportunities for training and work, they have shown that they can be loyal and reliable workers. They are highly motivated because, while for most people work is a means of gaining financial independence, for women with disabilities having a job also means becoming part of society – something others take for granted.Vocational training provides them with specific skills for jobs in the labour market. It therefore increases their chances of finding work - and not just any work, but decent work. Vocational training furthers the education disabled women have received from school. It sometimes compensates for the earlier lack of opportunities for an adequate education. Vocational training is not an end in itself; its goal is appropriate employment. Having a job gives the disabled woman the opportunity to break out of poverty, dependency, and social isolation.
However, women with disabilities everywhere have far less opportunity for education, training, and employment. For example, it has been estimated that only two per cent of visually impaired children in developing countries receive any formal education. It is reasonable to expect that visually impaired girls in that group who receive formal education form a significantly smaller proportion compared to visually impaired boys. A report on a district in Karnataka State, India found that the literacy rate of disabled women was 7 per cent compared to a general literacy rate for the state of 46 per cent. Few statistics exist on the employment situation of women with disabilities in developing countries. However, one report suggests that 85 per cent of disabled people between the ages of 15 and 64 in Tunisia are unemployed and that disabled women find it four times more difficult than men to find work.Work for the disabled woman, as for everyone else, is central to her sense of social integration and psychological well-being because it:
C. Barriers to vocational training for women with disabilities
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Equalization of opportunities is a basic concept in the principle of equal rights. It is the process through which the various systems of society and the environment (such as services, information, and documentation) are made available to all – particularly to those who are excluded by social, economic, cultural, and political barriers. |
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Access in its fullest sense refers to physical access, communication access, and social access to facilities, services, training, and jobs. Physical access means that people with disabilities can, without assistance, approach, enter, pass to and from, and make use of an area and its facilities without undue difficulties. |
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“.. When I train with others [non-disabled persons],
I can improve myself because I know what standards are required.” |
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Mainstreaming is the process of integrating equal access concerns for people with disabilities in all mainstream systems of society, including vocational training. |
1. Women with disabilities
Integrating Women and Girls with Disabilities into Mainstream Vocational Training
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Updated 2004-12-07 |
