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The Canada team engages diverse women and girls as experts on the causes of their exclusion and facilitators to their inclusion.

The knowledges and lived experiences of diverse women and girls with disabilities will support our understanding of how policies, legislation, and human rights framework shape their lives, and how they can be improved to support their dreams.

This project starts with an intersectional lens, which recognizes that the lives of diverse women and girls with disabilities are shaped by multiple and interconnected social structures, such as gender, disability, race, Indigeneity, class, and sexuality.

We adopt a livelihoods framework to understand how diverse women and girls with disabilities meet their needs and achieve their goals, and follow a life course analysis to understand how diverse women and girls with disabilities navigate critical life transitions, such as between school and work; between living in care and community and becoming an adult, a mother, and a caregiver; and between work and retirement.

  • Deborah Stienstra, University of Guelph (Co-Lead)
  • Bonnie Brayton, DisAbled Women’s Network of Canada (Co-Lead)
  • Kathryn Reinders, University of Guelph

  • Neil Belanger, IDC/BCANDS (Indigenous Disability Canada/British Columbia Aboriginal Network on Disability Society)
  • Bonnie Brayton, DisAbled Women’s Network of Canada (DAWN Canada)
  • Ruvimbo Chidziva, Global Affairs Canada
  • Maureen Haan, Canadian Council on Rehabilitation and Work (CCRW)
  • Tammy C. Yates, Realize Canada

Key Priorities

The objectives of this collaborative study are to understand how diverse women and girls with disabilities meet their needs, achieve their dreams, and identify strategies to implement their dreams. We ask the following research questions:

  • What are the supportive and hindering factors shaping paths to livelihoods of diverse women and girls with disabilities in Canada across the life course?
  • How do legislative, jurisdictional and human rights frameworks facilitate or limit paths to livelihoods for diverse women and girls with disabilities?

Key Priorities

The objectives of this collaborative study are to understand how diverse women and girls with disabilities meet their needs, achieve their dreams, and identify strategies to implement their dreams. We ask the following research questions:

  • What are the supportive and hindering factors shaping paths to livelihoods of diverse women and girls with disabilities in Canada across the life course?
  • How do legislative, jurisdictional and human rights frameworks facilitate or limit paths to livelihoods for diverse women and girls with disabilities?

About Disability in Canada

6.2 million individuals over the age of 15 living in Canada have one or more disabilities, accounting for 22% of the Canadian population (2017).

  • Of the 6.2 million people living with disabilities in Canada, roughly 3.5 million are women aged 15 and over (2017).
  • According to the last national dataset on youths with disabilities (2006), 10.9% of all children under 15 live with a disability. This increases to 11.8% for girls aged 0-14.

People with disabilities are also twice as likely to live with poverty or low income compared to those without disabilities (2017).

  • Prior to the start of the COVID-19 pandemic in March 2020, employment rates for people with disabilities were significantly lower than those without disabilities (59% compared to 80%).
  • Census data from 2016 demonstrates that people with disabilities have a lower average after-tax income (CAD $34,330) compared to those without disabilities (CAD $38,980).
Click to view sources

About Disability in Canada

6.2 million individuals over the age of 15 living in Canada have one or more disabilities, accounting for 22% of the Canadian population (2017).

  • Of the 6.2 million people living with disabilities in Canada, roughly 3.5 million are women aged 15 and over (2017).
  • According to the last national dataset on youths with disabilities (2006), 10.9% of all children under 15 live with a disability. This increases to 11.8% for girls aged 0-14.

People with disabilities are also twice as likely to live with poverty or low income compared to those without disabilities (2017).

  • Prior to the start of the COVID-19 pandemic in March 2020, employment rates for people with disabilities were significantly lower than those without disabilities (59% compared to 80%).
  • Census data from 2016 demonstrates that people with disabilities have a lower average after-tax income (CAD $34,330) compared to those without disabilities (CAD $38,980).
Click to view sources

Recommended Reading

Canada: Snapshot of Human Rights Commitments

Ratified: 2010

Recent report process: 2015

Selected recommendations (2017):

  • Strengthen the human, financial and technical resources of the Office for Disability Issues at the federal level and ensure appropriate formal and permanent mechanisms for coordination with provincial and territorial governments.
  • Ensure appropriate dissemination of the Convention and the Committee’s general comments, concluding observations and recommendations in sign languages and in accessible formats, modes and means of communication, such as easy-read formats.
  • Conduct research aimed at enhancing understanding of diverse gender identities and monitoring attitudinal barriers faced by lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex persons with disabilities.

Access the CRPD Concluding Observations Report for Canada.

Ratified: 1981

Recent report process: 2015

Selected recommendations (2016):

  • Develop a comprehensive national gender strategy, policy and action plan addressing the structural factors that cause persistent inequalities with respect to women and girls, including intersecting forms of discrimination, with a special focus on disadvantaged groups such as women and girls with disabilities.
  • Ensure that Indigenous women’s organizations are included in the countrywide nation-to-nation relationship in all cases in which issues of relevance to women apply.
  • Adopt a national action plan, in consultation with civil society organizations, especially Indigenous women’s organizations, to combat gender-based violence against women.

Access the full CEDAW Concluding Observations Report for Canada.

Ratified: 1991

Recent report process: 2019

Selected recommendations (2012 – Most recent recommendations are forthcoming):

  • Take urgent measures to address the overrepresentation of Indigenous and African-Canadian children in the criminal justice system and out-of-home care.
  • Address disparities in access to services by all children facing situations of vulnerability, including ethnic minorities, children with disabilities, immigrants and others.
  • Ensure the incorporation of a gender perspective in the development and implementation of any programme or stimulus package, especially programmes related to combatting violence, poverty, and redressing other vulnerabilities.

Access the full CRC Concluding Observations Report for Canada.

Canada: Snapshot of Human Rights Commitments

Ratified: 2010

Recent report process: 2015

Selected recommendations (2017):

  • Strengthen the human, financial and technical resources of the Office for Disability Issues at the federal level and ensure appropriate formal and permanent mechanisms for coordination with provincial and territorial governments.
  • Ensure appropriate dissemination of the Convention and the Committee’s general comments, concluding observations and recommendations in sign languages and in accessible formats, modes and means of communication, such as easy-read formats.
  • Conduct research aimed at enhancing understanding of diverse gender identities and monitoring attitudinal barriers faced by lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex persons with disabilities.

Access the CRPD Concluding Observations Report for Canada.

Ratified: 1981

Recent report process: 2015

Selected recommendations (2016):

  • Develop a comprehensive national gender strategy, policy and action plan addressing the structural factors that cause persistent inequalities with respect to women and girls, including intersecting forms of discrimination, with a special focus on disadvantaged groups such as women and girls with disabilities.
  • Ensure that Indigenous women’s organizations are included in the countrywide nation-to-nation relationship in all cases in which issues of relevance to women apply.
  • Adopt a national action plan, in consultation with civil society organizations, especially Indigenous women’s organizations, to combat gender-based violence against women.

Access the full CEDAW Concluding Observations Report for Canada.

Ratified: 1991

Recent report process: 2019

Selected recommendations (2012 – Most recent recommendations are forthcoming):

  • Take urgent measures to address the overrepresentation of Indigenous and African-Canadian children in the criminal justice system and out-of-home care.
  • Address disparities in access to services by all children facing situations of vulnerability, including ethnic minorities, children with disabilities, immigrants and others.
  • Ensure the incorporation of a gender perspective in the development and implementation of any programme or stimulus package, especially programmes related to combatting violence, poverty, and redressing other vulnerabilities.

Access the full CRC Concluding Observations Report for Canada.

Recommended Reading

  • Stienstra, D. (2020). About Canada: Disability Rights, 2nd Ed. Fernwood Publishing. (EDID partnership members: Request access)
  • Stienstra, Deborah, Gail Baikie, and Susan M. Manning. “My granddaughter doesn’t know she has disabilities and we are not going to tell her’: Navigating intersections of Indigenousness, disability and gender in Labrador.” Disability and the Global South 5, no. 2 (2018): 1385-1406. (Open access)

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Connect with us!

EMAIL: edid-ghdi@uoguelph.ca

TWITTER: @edid-ghdi

INSTAGRAM: @edid_ghdi

MAIL: Live Work Well Research Centre, University of Guelph, Attention: EDID-GHDI, 501 MacKinnon Building, 50 Stone Rd E, Guelph, Ontario, Canada N1G 2W1