Comments to the Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities on Draft General
Comment No. 4, on the Right to Inclusive Education (Article 24)
December 22, 2015
The Center for Reproductive Rights (“the Center”), a global non-governmental legal advocacy
organization dedicated to advancing reproductive freedom as a fundamental human right,
welcomes the opportunity to provide comments to the Committee on the Rights of Persons with
Disabilities concerning its draft general comment on Article 24: the right to inclusive education.
In collaboration with International Disability Alliance, the Center provided input to the
Committee in March 2015 in response to its call for submissions, focusing on comprehensive
and inclusive sexuality education as a critical component of the right to inclusive education. The
Center appreciates the draft general comments’ recognition that inclusive education is essential
for the realization of a broad range of rights protected under the Convention, including the rights
to nondiscrimination, health, effective and full participation in public and political life, and
freedom from violence and abuse. This draft general comment presents an important opportunity
for the Committee to address states’ obligations in relation to the right to inclusive education for
all persons with disabilities, including by ensuring that the educational system takes measures to
eradicate discrimination against persons with disabilities and guarantees all persons with
disabilities with the requisite information and knowledge for the full and equal enjoyment of
their human rights.
The Center would like to call the Committee’s attention to the integral role of comprehensive
sexuality education in realizing the rights of persons with disabilities – an area that remains
significantly overlooked in countries worldwide.1 The sexual and reproductive health and rights
of persons with disabilities are often neglected as a result of prejudicial beliefs that people with
disabilities are asexual or should have their sexuality and fertility controlled.2 Persons with
disabilities face significant obstacles to accessing comprehensive sexuality education and indeed
are among the most marginalized groups in this regard.3 Physical obstacles and the lack of
disability-related clinical services present barriers to persons with disabilities accessing
information about sexual and reproductive health, including comprehensive sexuality education.4
Furthermore, educational materials are seldom made available in formats such as Braille, large
print, simple language, pictures, sign language,5 or digital fully accessible formats, among others
appropriate, making it difficult for persons with disabilities to access health-related information,
including sexuality education.6 Additionally, sexuality education rarely addresses distinct sexual
and reproductive health needs and issues faced by persons with disabilities or the historical
discrimination they face in accessing these services, including as a result of being subjected to
forced or coerced sterilization, contraception, or abortion.7
I. Comprehensive and Inclusive Sexuality Education as an Essential Element of the
Right to Inclusive Education
Comprehensive, accurate, and inclusive sexuality education is a key component of ensuring that
reproductive rights are fulfilled, including for persons with disabilities, by providing needed
information at an early age to break down stereotypes and ensure that people can make informed
decisions about their sexuality and reproduction, which significantly impacts their lives. The
Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) in Article 23 recognizes the
importance of sexuality education to fulfilling sexual and reproductive rights, noting that “[t]he
rights of persons with disabilities … to have access to age-appropriate information, reproductive
and family planning education are recognized, and the means necessary to enable them to
exercise these rights are provided.”8
Indeed, comprehensive and inclusive sexuality education is an essential means of empowering
individuals, including persons with disabilities, to make informed decisions about their sexuality
and reproduction, free from violence, discrimination, or coercion. It provides critical information
for all persons with disabilities, and particularly women and girls, to protect themselves from
sexual abuse and unwanted pregnancies and STIs such as HIV/AIDS, as well as to access sexual
and reproductive health services on the basis of free and informed consent, a particularly
important element of reproductive rights for women and girls with disabilities due to historical
violations of their reproductive rights.9 However, persons with disabilities are more likely than
others to be excluded from comprehensive sexuality education programs,10 and when they are
provided with education on sexual and reproductive health, the content of that information may
be different and provided separately from others.11
According to the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO)
technical guidelines on sexuality education, in order for sexuality education to be effective, it
should be comprehensive and at minimum include information about anatomy and physiology,
puberty, pregnancy, and sexually-transmitted infections (STIs), including HIV/AIDS.12 The
United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) operational guidance on comprehensive sexuality
education further emphasizes that this education should be rights-based and gender-focused,
provided in settings both inside and outside of formal schools, and focused on three formal goals:
acquiring accurate information, promoting positive values and attitudes, and developing life
skills.13
In addition to empowering individuals to make decisions, inclusive comprehensive sexuality
education may also help educate the public about human rights, including the rights of persons
with disabilities, by breaking down stereotypes and addressing issues of discrimination.
According to the UNESCO technical guidelines, comprehensive sexuality education programs
can address the relationships and emotions involved in sexual experiences for all, promote selfesteem, respect for the rights of others, and gender equality,14 and should avoid “reinforcing
demeaning stereotypes and perpetuating forms of prejudice.”15 The UNESCO guidelines further
provide that sexuality education should reinforce that “every person has the right to decide
whether to become a parent, including people with disabilities…” and that “everyone has a
unique body which deserves respect, including people with disabilities.”16 For these reasons, the
Center respectfully calls on the Committee to include comprehensive sexuality education within
this general comment.
II. Recommendations for Incorporating Comprehensive and Inclusive Sexuality
Education into the Draft General Comment
The current text of the draft general comment provides several opportunities for the Committee
to highlight the importance of comprehensive and inclusive sexuality education:
 Paragraph 47: In affirming states’ obligations to raise awareness and challenge
stereotypes, prejudices and harmful practices relating to persons with disabilities, the
Committee could set forth specific beliefs that should be addressed within the
educational system. In particular, this could include calling on schools to address the
misperceptions and beliefs that lead to elevated rates of violence against persons with
disabilities, particularly including sexual violence against women and girls with
disabilities.
 Paragraph 50: In recognizing that people with disabilities, particularly women and girls,
can be disproportionately vulnerable to violence and abuse, the Committee should
highlight the role that comprehensive and inclusive sexuality education can have on
addressing the underlying causes of sexual violence and educating individuals about and
empowering them to exercise their sexual and reproductive health and rights. For
instance, sexuality education can help dispel myths that pervade communities about
persons with disabilities, such as that they are asexual or over-sexual or that they are not
capable of starting a family.17 Furthermore, lack of adequate information on sexuality
may in turn make persons with disabilities more susceptible to sexual abuse.18
Guaranteeing persons with disabilities comprehensive and inclusive sexuality education
is a critical element of the realization of the full range of their human rights.
 Paragraph 53: The Committee should consider drawing upon the extensive standards
that have been set forth by other treaty monitoring bodies recognizing that
comprehensive sexuality education is a critical component of both the right to education
and the right to health. In this regard, the Committee on the Rights of the Child has
made clear that “family planning services should be sit situated within comprehensive
sexual and reproductive health services and should encompass sexuality education.”19
Further, the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW
Committee) has called for the inclusion of “age-appropriate education on sexual and
reproductive health and rights into primary and secondary school curricula, including
comprehensive sex education for adolescent girls and boys covering responsible sexual
behaviour and the prevention of early pregnancies and sexually transmitted diseases
such as HIV/AIDS.”20 The CEDAW Committee has further urged states to “implement
comprehensive programmes on sexual and reproductive health and rights as a regular
part of the school curriculum, providing girls and boys with adequate, age-appropriate
information on responsible sexual choices.”21 Such programs should “address the right
of women to make their own choices with regard to reproductive and sexual health, and
provide information on how to prevent teenage pregnancy and sexually transmitted
diseases.”22 The Special Rapporteur on the Right to Education has found that
comprehensive sexuality education is part of the right to education more generally,23 a
right also enshrined in Article 24(1) of the CRPD. Because of the information it
provides on relationships, sexuality, and accessing health services, comprehensive
sexuality education should also be considered an essential part of life skills education, as
outlined in Article 24(3) of the CRPD.24
 Furthermore, the Committee should consider the possibility of adding a paragraph in
section 4 (Relation with other Provisions of the Convention) on the role that inclusive
education – including comprehensive and inclusive sexuality education – has on the
right to respect for home and family life (Article 23). As set forth in the Convention, this
includes the right of all persons with disabilities to “decide freely and responsibly on the
number and spacing of their children and to have access to age-appropriate information
[and] reproductive and family planning education.”25 Guaranteeing all persons with
disabilities comprehensive and inclusive sexuality education is essential to enabling
them to make free and informed decisions about their fertility and reproduction and if
and when to begin a family.
III. Conclusion
The Center for Reproductive Rights hopes that the Committee finds these recommendations
useful in revising its draft general comment on the right to inclusive education. Should the
Committee require more information or have any additional questions, please do not hesitate to
be in touch with Rebecca Brown, Director of Global Advocacy, at rbrown@reprorights.org or +1
(917) 637-3634.
1
WORLD HEALTH ORGANIZATION (WHO)/UNITED NATIONS POPULATION FUND (UNFPA), PROMOTING SEXUAL
AND REPRODUCTIVE HEALTH FOR PERSONS WITH DISABILITIES 5 (2009) [hereinafter PROMOTING SEXUAL AND
REPRODUCTIVE HEALTH FOR PERSONS WITH DISABILITIES].
2
Id., at 6-7 and WHO, WORLD REPORT ON DISABILITY 78 (2011).
3
PROMOTING SEXUAL AND REPRODUCTIVE HEALTH FOR PERSONS WITH DISABILITIES, supra note 1, at 5.
4
Id., at 7.
See, as an example of barriers to health services in the USA, including HIV prevention, for deaf persons, Center
for AIDS Prevention, University of California, San Francisco, What Are Deaf Persons’ HIV Prevention Needs?,
available at http://caps.ucsf.edu/archives/factsheets/deaf-persons.
6
PROMOTING SEXUAL AND REPRODUCTIVE HEALTH FOR PERSONS WITH DISABILITIES, supra note 1, at 7.
7
HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH, “AS IF WE WEREN’T HUMAN”: DISCRIMINATION AND VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN WITH
DISABILITIES IN NORTHERN UGANDA 46-47 (2010). See DESJARDIN M., The sexualized body of the child, parents
and the politics of ‘voluntary’ sterilization of people labelled intellectually disabled in SEX AND DISABILITY (R
McRuer and A Mollow) (2012).
8
Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, adopted Dec. 13, 2006, art, 23, G.A. Res. A/RES/61/106,
U.N. GAOR, 61st Sess., U.N. Doc. A/61/611, (entered into force May, 3 2008) [hereinafter CRPD].
9
UNITED NATIONS EDUCATIONAL, SCIENTIFIC, AND CULTURAL ORGANIZATION (UNESCO), THE RATIONALE FOR
SEXUALITY EDUCATION: INTERNATIONAL TECHNICAL GUIDANCE ON SEXUALITY EDUCATION 20 (2009).
10
WHO, WORLD REPORT ON DISABILITY 61 (2011).
11
For instance, a recent research in Mexico, that included questionnaires to women with psychosocial disabilities,
highlighted their lack of awareness on sexual and reproductive health issues due to lack of effective policies, as well
as a high proportion of victims of abuse and forced sterilizations’ in health services, Disability Rights International
and Colectivo Chucán, Abuso y Negación de Derechos Sexuales y Reproductivos a Mujeres con Discapacidad
Psicosocial en México, 25 February 2015.
12
UNITED NATIONS EDUCATIONAL, SCIENTIFIC, AND CULTURAL ORGANIZATION (UNESCO), THE RATIONALE FOR
SEXUALITY EDUCATION: INTERNATIONAL TECHNICAL GUIDANCE ON SEXUALITY EDUCATION 22 (2009).
13
UNFPA, OPERATIONAL GUIDANCE ON COMPREHENSIVE SEXUALITY EDUCATION 6 (2014).
14
CENTER FOR REPRODUCTIVE RIGHTS, THE REPRODUCTIVE RIGHTS OF ADOLESCENTS: A TOOL FOR HEALTH AND
EMPOWERMENT 6 (2008) [hereinafter REPRODUCTIVE RIGHTS OF ADOLESCENTS].
15
Interights v. Croatia, No. 45/2007 Eur. Comm. of Social Rights, para. 48 (2009).
16
UNESCO, INTERNATIONAL TECHNICAL GUIDANCE ON SEXUALITY EDUCATION 11 & 21 (2009).
5
17
For instance, many northern Ugandans believe that women with disabilities are asexual and thus do not have
HIV/AIDS, or even that sex with a woman with disability can cure AIDS. This made women with disabilities
especially vulnerable to HIV infection. HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH, “AS IF WE WEREN’T HUMAN”: DISCRIMINATION
AND V IOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN WITH DISABILITIES IN NORTHERN UGANDA 46 (2010); Women with disabilities are
also sometimes perceived as being over-sexual, leading to many human rights abuses. See DESJARDIN M., The
sexualized body of the child, parents and the politics of ‘voluntary’ sterilization of people labelled intellectually
disabled in SEX AND DISABILITY (R McRuer and A Mollow) (2012).
18
F.A. Owen, et al., Perceptions of acceptable boundaries of persons with developmental disabilities and their careproviders, 7 JOURNAL ON DEVELOPMENTAL DISABILITIES 34-49 (2000).
19
CRC Committee, General Comment 15: The right of the child to the enjoyment of the highest attainable standard
of health, (62nd Sess.), para. 69, U.N. Doc. CRC/C/GC/15 (2013).
20
Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW Committee), Concluding
Observations: Ghana, para. 33, U.N. Doc. CEDAW/C/GHA/CO/6-7 (2014); see also CEDAW Committee,
Concluding Observations: Georgia, para. 27(e), U.N. Doc. CEDAW/C/GEO/CO/4-5 (2014); Lithuania, para. 33(d),
U.N. Doc. CEDAW/C/LTU/CO/5 (2014); Peru, para. 30(d), U.N. Doc. CEDAW/C/PER/CO/7-8 (2014); Cape
Verde, para. 25(d), U.N. Doc. CEDAW/C/CPV/CO/7-8 (2013); Dominican Republic, para. 33(d), U.N. Doc.
CEDAW/C/DOM/CO/6-7 (2013); Serbia, para. 29(c), U.N. Doc. CEDAW/C/SRB/CO/2-3 (2013); Guyana, para.
33(d), U.N. Doc. CEDAW/C/GUY/CO/7-8 (2012).
21
CEDAW Committee, Concluding Elimination of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW Committee),
Concluding Observations: Ghana, para. 33, U.N. Doc. CEDAW/C/GHA/CO/6-7 (2014); see also CEDAW
Committee, Concluding Observations: Georgia, para. 27(e), U.N. Doc. CEDAW/C/GEO/CO/4-5 (2014); Lithuania,
para. 33(d), U.N. Doc. CEDAW/C/LTU/CO/5 (2014); Peru, para. 30(d), U.N. Doc. CEDAW/C/PER/CO/7-8
(2014); Cape Verde, para. 25(d), U.N. Doc. CEDAW/C/CPV/CO/7-8 (2013); Dominican Republic, para. 33(d),
U.N. Doc. CEDAW/C/DOM/CO/6-7 (2013); Serbia, para. 29(c), U.N. Doc. CEDAW/C/SRB/CO/2-3 (2013);
Guyana, para. 33(d), U.N. Doc. CEDAW/C/GUY/CO/7-8 (2012).
21
CEDAW Committee, Concluding Observations: Venezuela, para. 27(d), U.N. Doc. CEDAW/C/VEN/CO/7-8
(2014).
22
CEDAW Committee, Concluding Elimination of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW Committee),
Concluding Observations: Ghana, para. 33, U.N. Doc. CEDAW/C/GHA/CO/6-7 (2014); see also CEDAW
Committee, Concluding Observations: Georgia, para. 27(e), U.N. Doc. CEDAW/C/GEO/CO/4-5 (2014); Lithuania,
para. 33(d), U.N. Doc. CEDAW/C/LTU/CO/5 (2014); Peru, para. 30(d), U.N. Doc. CEDAW/C/PER/CO/7-8
(2014); Cape Verde, para. 25(d), U.N. Doc. CEDAW/C/CPV/CO/7-8 (2013); Dominican Republic, para. 33(d),
U.N. Doc. CEDAW/C/DOM/CO/6-7 (2013); Serbia, para. 29(c), U.N. Doc. CEDAW/C/SRB/CO/2-3 (2013);
Guyana, para. 33(d), U.N. Doc. CEDAW/C/GUY/CO/7-8 (2012).
22
CEDAW Committee, Concluding Observations: Venezuela, para. 27(d), U.N. Doc. CEDAW/C/VEN/CO/7-8
(2014).
23
See also Special Rapporteur on the right to education, Rep. of the Special Rapporteur on the right to education,
para. 20, U.N. Doc. A/65/162 (July 23, 2010) [hereinafter Rep. of the Special Rapporteur on the right to education];
CRPD, art. 24(1), supra note 3.
24
See, e.g., UNFPA, OPERATIONAL GUIDANCE ON COMPREHENSIVE SEXUALITY EDUCATION 6 (2014).
25
CRPD, Article 23(1).