Women's Views on News |
| Disabilities policies ‘overlook gender’ Posted: 30 Aug 2016 03:11 PM PDT
States too often fail to uphold their obligations with regard to women and girls with disabilities, treating them or allowing them to be treated as helpless objects of pity, subjected to hostility and exclusion, instead of empowering them to enjoy their fundamental human rights and freedoms, the Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) has said. "Policies for women have traditionally made disability invisible, and disabilities policies have overlooked gender," Committee member Theresia Degener said. "But if you are a woman or a girl with disabilities, you face discrimination and barriers because you are female, because you are disabled, and because you are female and disabled." To help to address this, the Committee has issued guidance for the 166 States that have ratified the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities outlining how they can promote the empowerment of women with disabilities to enable them to participate in all spheres of life on an equal basis with others, as set out in the Convention and expressly in Article 6. The guidance, termed a General Comment, stresses that refraining from discriminatory actions is not enough. States need to empower women by "raising their self-confidence, guaranteeing their participation, and increasing their power and authority to take decisions in all areas affecting their lives." It notes that there are three main areas of concern regarding women and girls with disabilities: Physical, sexual, or psychological violence, which may be institutional or interpersonal; Restriction of sexual and reproductive rights, including the right to accessible information and communication, the right to motherhood and child-rearing responsibilities; and Multiple discrimination. Women and girls with disabilities need to be recognised as individuals who enjoy the same rights as others to make decisions about their lives, the Committee said. "Women with disabilities are often treated as if they have no control or should have no control over their sexual and reproductive rights," the General Comment says. For example, women and girls with disabilities are particularly at risk of forced sterilisation, while mothers with disabilities are more likely to have their children taken away. The General Comment details the measures States parties should take in a range of areas, including health, education, access to justice, and equality before the law, transport and employment, to enable women and girls with disabilities to fully enjoy their human rights. "Our recommendations cover practical steps, such as planning public services that work for women with disabilities, and involving them in the design of products so they can use them," CRPD member Diane Kingston said. "Think of the women and girls with disabilities who face huge and daily hurdles with regard to water, sanitation and hygiene, and how guaranteeing accessible facilities, services and products could transform their lives." "Our General Comment also covers attitudes," Committee member Ana Pelaez added. "For example, girls and young women with disabilities face not only prejudices encountered by persons with disabilities in general but are often constrained by traditional gender roles and barriers that can lead to situations where they receive less care and food than boys, or where their chances to get an education or training are much reduced and hence their future prospects of employment." The General Comment calls on States parties to repeal or reform all legislation which discriminates, either directly or indirectly, against women and girls with disabilities, and also urges public campaigns to overcome and transform long-held discriminatory attitudes towards women with disabilities. "We hope that States parties will be guided by this General Comment to review their laws and practices to achieve greater recognition and fulfilment of the human rights of women and girls with disabilities," the Committee's chair, María Soledad Cisternas Reyes, said. To read the General Comment, click here.  |
| Some shoes are not all that they seem Posted: 30 Aug 2016 03:10 PM PDT
New research just out shows shoppers are being led to believe the expensive shoes they buy in high-street stores are made in Germany and Italy – when many are actually made by workers on poverty wages in eastern European sweatshops. EU laws protect central European workers in many ways, but out towards the Eastern fringe of Europe, in non-EU member countries including Bosnia-Herzegovina, Macedonia, Albania and recently added member states Romania and Poland, the story is quite different. New research – Labour On a Shoe String – published as part of Labour Behind the Label‘s Change Your Shoes campaign, has uncovered wage levels for workers in the shoe industry are shockingly low and conditions very poor. The outward processing report also uncovers the extent to which products that are labelled as 'Made in Italy' or 'Made in Germany' are actually part-produced in Eastern Europe and the Balkan states. This scandal made The Guardian last week, in an article with the title 'The expensive 'Italian' shoes made for a pittance in east European sweatshops' which revealed that shoes labelled ‘Made in Italy’ are actually being shipped out to nearby ‘low wage’ countries like Albania or Macedonia where they are assembled by workers on poverty pay, before being shipped back for packaging and retail. Not hand-made in Italy as you might suppose. Eastern European shoe and garment workers increasingly need our solidarity. Wages in these factories fall way below the poverty line, coming in around 25 – 35 per cent of an estimated minimum living wage level. This is similar to the wage deficit faced by shoe workers in China, and in some cases more extreme – a new frontier of exploitation. To afford the cost of a pint of milk, for example, workers in Albania and Romania would have to work for 1 hour, compared to 57 minutes in China and just 4 minutes on the UK minimum wage. Workers assemble products for piece rate pay and then the shoes are shipped back for labelling and retail. As many workers earn a wage based on units produced and not hours worked, they often work unpaid overtime or refuse to follow safety procedures that protect them from glue and hazardous chemicals in order to maintain high productivity. In many factories workers face extreme cold in winter and temperatures so high in summer that they frequently faint. The evidence is clear. In order for Albanian, Macedonian and Romanian factory workers – the majority of them women – to earn enough to support themselves and their families, wages need to be between four and five times higher. To read the full Labour on a Shoestring report, click here. Brands should, must and need to be honest about where their shoes are made. While it is one thing to uncover these hidden workplaces, and the second is doing something about it. Labour Behind the Label, an NGO supporting garment workers worldwide to defend their rights, is building a campaign about transparency in supply chains. You can help. You can spread the word about this report by visiting Labour Behind the Label's facebook page or Twitter and sharing the infographics there. And you could take a good look at your shoes… or any you might be about to buy…  |
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