The double discrimination faced by women with disabilities

Editorial word: The double discrimination faced by women with disabilities

By Clara Bauer-Babef

The European Parliament’s Committee on Women’s Rights and Gender Equality (FEMM) was asked on Tuesday (7 November) to deliver its opinion on the European disability card. The committee members warned of the additional discrimination suffered by disabled women. 

“It is historic for the world of disability to be able to adopt this directive, and I hope that it can be adopted as quickly as possible,” Spanish MEP Rosa Estaras (EPP) said during the FEMM committee meeting.

The European Commission has proposed the European disability card as EU-wide cross-border proof of disability for the 87 million people suffering from some form of disability. 

While the card was welcomed by the members of the FEMM committee, they were keen to point out the double discrimination suffered by women with disabilities. 

“They are both women and disabled,” said Estaras, stressing that they are therefore “more vulnerable” and suffer “more discrimination” than disabled men. 

According to data published in 2021 by the European Institute for Gender Equality, only 20% of disabled women have full-time jobs in the EU, compared to 29% of disabled men and 48% of non-disabled women.

This is why the MEPs stressed the importance of taking gender inequalities into account in the future European directive on the card. 

“Especially if we compare the situation of women compared to men in terms of the labour market, higher education, but also in the face of violence or sexual violence in society”, stressed Swedish MEP Abir Al-Sahlani (Renew).

However, the lack of data on the situation of disabled women in the EU remains an obstacle. “The member states and the Commission need to map the impact of this legislation, particularly on women and young girls,” said Al-Sahlani. 

Disabled women also face more violence.

“One form of violence specifically targeting women and girls with disabilities is forced sterilisation, contraception, abortion and other medical procedures carried out without their free and informed consent,” reads a Council of Europe note. 

Estaras concluded that “disabled women are particularly vulnerable to violence, and this card should also be a way for them to access all services and assistance related to violence”.

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EU News 

• • EU Parliament approves report on non-communicable diseases.
  • MEPs approve report on mental health
  • WHO lobbies EU lawmakers against watering down alcohol cancer risk
  • Few surprises during MEPs’ debates on the revision of the EU pharmaceutical legislation
  • No progress in the TRIPS waiver discussion

• MEPs approve reports on non-communicable diseases and mental health.

The committee on environment (ENVI) approved on Tuesday (7 November) its own initiative report with recommendations to the European Commission aiming to tackle the burden of non-communicable diseases (NCDs) in Europe. With 560 amendments filed back in September, members of the committee agreed on a smaller number of compromise amendments that were approved during the vote. EU lawmakers stressed the need to improve prevention strategies and the benefits this would bring to healthcare systems. Since the beginning of the discussions in ENVI’s subcommittee on public health, lawmakers have put the focus on addressing the main risk factors contributing to NCDs such as tobacco smoke, alcohol, unhealthy diets and physical inactivity.

MEPs also approved the ‘own intiative’ report on mental health with 59 in favour, six rejections and four abstentions. At its initial presentation in September, MEPs mostly agreed on the need to identify vulnerable groups to prevent and treat mental health problems and ensure that action on mental health has an extremely broad focus. It later received 524 amendments. The report follows the European Commission’s presentation of a communication on mental health in June.

Both reports will go to the plenary sitting of the European Parliament in Strasbourg on 11 December. 

• WHO lobbies EU lawmakers against watering down alcohol cancer risk.

Before the ENVI committee meeting and vote on non-communicable diseases on Tuesday (7 November), the World Health Organisation sent a letter to MEPs voicing its concern about the EU’s flagship Beating Cancer delivery plan due to the chosen wording on alcohol use. In the compromise amendments presented by lawmakers, they identify four main risks of NCDs, including “harmful use of alcohol”, a term that has not been well received by the health organisation, considering it “scientifically inaccurate and worrisome” in the context of cancer prevention. In the first agreement on amendments, the term used was “alcohol consumption” which raises questions regarding the decision to change the wording in the last version of the document.

Gerardo Fortuna and Marta Iraola have more on this here. 

• Few surprises during MEPs’ debates on the revision of the EU pharmaceutical legislation

There were no big surprises during the debates in the European Parliament’s environment and public health committee (ENVI) on Tuesday (7 November) as they discussed the draft reports for both the regulation and the directive as a part of the revision of the EU’s pharmaceutical legislation. One noticeable element of rapporteur Tiemo Wölken’s draft report of the pharmaceutical package’s regulation was the suggestion to completely remove the transferable exclusivity voucher, which has been up for heavy debate since before the Commission’s presentation of the revision of the pharmaceutical legislation.

The deadline for tabling amendments to the regulation with Wölken as rapporteur is 13 November. For the directive with Pernille Weiss as rapporteur, the deadline for amendments is 14 November.

• No progress in the TRIPS waiver discussions

No progress was made in discussions on whether to extend the COVID-19 vaccine waiver to include diagnostics and therapeutics at the latest meeting of the World Trade Organisation (WTO) Council on Trade-related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) last week. The recent report from the the US International Trade Commission (USITC) report on COVID-19 diagnostics and therapeutics was supposed to help the discussions move forward, but so far countries have maintained their positions on the topic.

Amalie Holmgaard Mersh has more here.

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[Edited by Zoran Radosavljevic]

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