IDA welcomes new UN Guidelines on identifying and addressing intersectional discrimination against girls, adolescents, women and older women with disabilities

IDA welcomes new UN Guidelines on intersectional discrimination and calls for action led by women with disabilities

Accompanying IDA analysis and OPD toolkit support the translation of the Guidelines into changes in laws, services, funding and everyday life.

The International Disability Alliance (IDA) welcomes the adoption by the United Nations Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities of its Guidelines on identifying and addressing intersectional discrimination against girls, adolescents, women and older women with disabilities. Adopted during the Committee's thirty-fifth session in August 2026, the Guidelines provide an important foundation for advancing equality across the life course.

For women and girls with disabilities, equality must mean being able to make decisions about their bodies, obtain protection from violence, attend school, earn an income, participate in public life and choose where and with whom they live. The Guidelines address the interconnected barriers that can prevent these rights from becoming a reality.

Disability, gender, age, race, Indigenous identity, migration status, poverty and other factors can interact to produce distinct experiences of discrimination. Laws, policies, services, and systems must be able to recognise and respond to those experiences. The Guidelines explain how States should fulfil their existing obligations under the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities through an approach that addresses people’s lives as a whole.

IDA particularly welcomes the contributions of women with disabilities and their representative organisations to the development of the Guidelines. Their lived experience and expertise inform both the identification of discrimination and the measures needed to address it. This leadership must continue throughout implementation.

The Guidelines also confront a persistent gap: disability policies can overlook gender, while gender equality policies can overlook disability. Their call for joint institutional responsibility, inclusive mainstream programmes and targeted measures provides a practical basis for closing that gap (paragraph 66).

From adoption to implementation

IDA calls on all stakeholders to address five priorities:

• Put women with disabilities in positions to shape decisions. Ensure that women and girls with disabilities, in all their diversity, can influence legislation, policies, programmes and monitoring through their representative organisations. Provide accessible participation, appropriate support and remuneration for expertise.
• Protect autonomy and freedom from violence. Uphold legal capacity, free and informed consent, sexual and reproductive health and rights, access to justice and the right to live independently in the community. Services must respect each person’s choices and provide effective routes to protection and remedy.
• Make equality a responsibility across government. Establish clear responsibilities, funded implementation plans and independent monitoring. Apply the Guidelines across health, education, employment, social protection, humanitarian response, peace and security, climate action and digital systems.
• Resource organisations led by women with disabilities. Development partners and other funders should respond to the Guidelines’ call for direct, accessible, flexible and multi-year support. Funding must enable organisations to set priorities, sustain their work and hold institutions accountable (paragraph 77).
• Measure changes in people’s lives. Assess whether women and girls can access services, exercise choice, obtain remedies and influence decisions. Evidence and monitoring must respect privacy and reflect the experiences of people who are frequently excluded.

IDA analysis and practical OPD toolkit

To support this work, IDA has prepared Equality in every part of life: Understanding and using the CRPD Committee's Guidelines on identifying and addressing intersectional discrimination against girls, adolescents, women and older women with disabilities.

The paper provides detailed analysis with paragraph references, explaining the Guidelines’ legal and policy significance and their implications for national implementation and international cooperation. It examines the connections between bodily autonomy, health, violence, justice, education, economic independence, community living and participation.

An accompanying toolkit provides ten practical tools for organisations of persons with disabilities, particularly organisations led by women and girls with disabilities. These support identifying discrimination, assessing the quality of services, documenting experiences ethically, preparing advocacy proposals, examining budgets, monitoring progress and choosing accountability mechanisms.

IDA looks forward to working with its members, organisations led by women with disabilities, women’s rights movements and other partners to advance implementation. The promise of these Guidelines must become tangible in the decisions women and girls make, the opportunities they can access and the power they hold over their own lives.

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IDA Media

Contact: media@ida-secretariat.org

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