The CERMI Women Foundation (FCM), along with the entire CERMI movement, has denounced this Thursday that “women and girls with disabilities remain invisible in international instruments that prohibit trafficking of persons, such as the United Nations Convention against Organized Transnational Crime or the United Nations Protocol to prevent, suppress and punish trafficking in persons, especially women and children.”
The FCM makes this complaint coinciding with the World Day against Trafficking of Persons, which is commemorated this Thursday, July 30, in which it alerts of the greater exposure of the female population with disabilities to trafficking and sexual exploitation: “The lack of awareness among women and girls with disabilities regarding their rights, and exploitation and its dangers makes them unable to identify themselves as victims and makes it easier for traffickers to manipulate them.”
In addition, the entity attributes this greater exposure to the lack of access to education and employment, which increases the risk of suffering from poverty. Thus, the FCM recalls that the United Nations Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities has shown its concern about the situation of women and girls with disabilities who live in poverty, who are often exposed to forms of exploitation and abuse such as begging and trafficking for the purposes of labor and sexual exploitation.
In the opinion of CERMI Mujeres, another factor that triggers the risk of being victims of trafficking is the lack of accessibility and reasonable accommodation to services for these people, which means that they are not inclusive.
Although the FCM highlights that at the national level the Comprehensive Plan to Combat Trafficking of Women and Girls for the Purposes of Sexual Exploitation 2015-2018, has taken disability into account in some of its planned activities, it warns that it is necessary to intensify these efforts from a broader and intersectional perspective in public policy on these issues, which must recognize and address the rights and specific situation of women and girls with disabilities.
“This reality remains completely invisible in public policies on trafficking and sexual exploitation in our country, so it is necessary to promote investigations that allow a situational analysis, articulate awareness tools to report this type of crime and promote inclusive measures for the care and recovery of victims ”, demands Cermi Mujeres.
Finally, it warns that this situation threatens the International Convention of Elimination of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW), the International Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disability and the Sustainable Development Goals (ODS)
