Page 789 - Week 02 - Thursday, 10 March 2011
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elderly nun who has spent all her time looking after women who have been so damaged after having been trafficked for the European sex trade.
MS BRESNAN (Brindabella) (4.42): On this important occasion of the centenary of International Women’s Day I will focus on women in the ACT with a disability. It is true that women in the ACT largely enjoy a high standard of living with good wages and conditions. There is, however, an undercurrent of disadvantage and there are some revealing statistics about the wellbeing of women with a disability.
Women with Disabilities Australia reports that women with disabilities are, from the government record, one of the most marginalised and disadvantaged groups in Australia. There are 1.8 million women in Australia with a disability. While the ACT has the lowest number of women with a disability, they still make up a significant proportion of the territory. In the ACT 16.9 per cent of women have a disability, of which six per cent have a disability that results in severe core activity limitation. Women with a disability suffer the dual disadvantage of gender and disability.
The Australian Institute of Health and Welfare released a report in January on disability support services. This report revealed that only 40 per cent of women with a disability are accessing education and support services nationally. Unfortunately, in the ACT it is a worse figure, with only 30 per cent of services being accessed by women. This disparity is a trend and it is not changing. It is something that advocates have been informing government of for at least a decade. The majority of spending is directed at men and boys, and this is because there is a skew to the types of disability that affect males in greater numbers, such as acquired brain injury.
It would seem that an approach to fund types of disability creates winners and losers, and in this case women are often the losers. A far more equitable approach would be to take a human rights approach to funding. We would then see funding that focused on support, participation and inclusion of the individual rather than a person with a specific disability.
A budget submission from Women with Disabilities ACT and the Women’s Centre for Health Matters outlines the following issues as requiring urgent attention: a lack of gender awareness amongst disability advocacy services and disability service providers; a lack of awareness of women with disabilities amongst health, community and women’s services; a need for information for women with disabilities in appropriate formats, for example, sexual health; the need for improved access to health services and access to personal care; a lack of leadership opportunities for women with disabilities; a prevalence of violence towards women with disabilities which is not reflected in access to services; and a prevalence of social isolation among women with disabilities. Women with Disabilities ACT have existed without ongoing funding for 15 years, and it was only last year that they received one-off funding from ACT Health and Disability ACT.
The Convention of the Elimination of Discrimination against Women, or CEDAW, is a human rights treaty that Australia is a signatory to. Last year the CEDAW monitoring committee reported that there is a complete absence of women with disabilities in positions of influence and leadership. In fact, they are nearly invisible.
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