The Human Rights of Women and Girls with Disabilities: Sterilization and Other Coercive Responses to Menstruation

Abstract

Steele and Goldblatt argue that menstruation is a key site for discrimination and violence against women and girls with disabilities and that the law has been complicit in sustaining these injustices. The authors make this argument by exploring the law as it relates to sterilization and provide an overview of some of the legal dimensions of menstruation in relation to women and girls with disabilities. The authors offer Australia as a case study of the human rights challenges for this population. The study concludes with a call for critical menstruation studies scholarship to engage with the legal dimensions of menstruation in relation to women and girls with disabilities and consider how mainstream menstruation activism can address this population’s experiences and needs.