This Submission, from WWDA to the Australian Attorney General (the Hon Nicola Roxon), respectfully requests that the Attorney-General take immediate action to ensure the Australian Government complies with the recommendations of: the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) [in 2010], the Committee on the Rights of the Child [in 2005 and 2012], and the Human Rights Council (UPR) [in 2011], and enact national legislation prohibiting, except where there is a serious threat to life or health, the use of sterilisation of girls, regardless of whether they have a disability, and of adult women with disabilities in the absence of their fully informed and free consent. WWDA’s Submission calls on the Government to invoke its external affairs power (as provided in Section 51 of the Australian Constitution), to ensure that this national legislation is enacted as a matter of urgency. In addition to the development and enactment of national legislation prohibiting the practice, WWDA’s Submission further requests that the Australian government implement a range of specific strategies to enable women with disabilities to realise their rights to freedom from violence, to reproductive freedom and to found a family, to freedom from torture or cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment, to privacy, and to health. These strategies are detailed at the end of this Submission. Copyright WWDA July 2012.
