Body autonomy: women with disabilities and the quest for a sex life free from violence

Abstract

The present paper aims to analyze the body autonomy of girls and women with disabilities and its influence on a sexual and reproductive life free from violence. Established in 1994, at the International Conference on Population and Development (or ICPD), the expression of bodily autonomy has entered the discourse of human rights advocates, activists, and experts. Other international texts point in the direction of "protecting and guaranteeing the right of all individuals to physical integrity, autonomy, and reproductive rights, and to provide access to essential services in support of these rights," such as the voluntary Nairobi Declaration (2019), the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (2006), and the UN 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, which established, among its goals, the achievement of sexual and reproductive health and reproductive rights for all, reaffirming the importance of the theme for the development of a society with gender equality. With bibliographical research and statistical data, authors such as Gesser, Beauvoir, Butler Honneth, and Becker have been used to establish a dialogue about disability and its necessary intersectionalities, to understand the condition of women with disabilities within a patriarchal, sexist, ableist, and racist society that reifies and silences them, reducing their lives to the private sphere, as if they were objects. Thus, we conclude that education for bodily autonomy, through the emancipatory process of girls and women with disabilities is one of the paths to be followed for the eradication of gender violence against this vulnerable group.