DAWN Canada is pleased to share our new report More Than A Footnote: A Research Report on Women and Girls with Disabilities in Canada.

"More Than A Footnote: A Research Report on Women and Girls with Disabilities in Canada sheds light on the key issues women and girls with disabilities in Canada face every day, such as social exclusion, poverty, barriers to education and unemployment. I am proud that our Government supported this eye opening report, which puts forward recommendations to create opportunities for women with disabilities in the future."

The Right Honourable Carla Qualtrough, Minister of Public Services and Procurement and Accessibility

This report begins to create, for the first time, a more fulsome picture of the issues and concerns Canadian women and girls with disabilities are facing.

It brings together several strands of existing research, with some original contributions, to piece together a more comprehensive understanding of what it is like to be a woman or a girl with a disability in Canada.

More Than A Footnote: A Research Report on Women and Girls with Disabilities in Canada - Full Report

More Than A Footnote: Executive Summary

Statistics Canada reports that 1 in 4 women in Canada lives with a disability.

Yet prior to this report, the available information on women and girls with disabilities, whether research-based or anecdotal, had never been gathered or analyzed in a comprehensive way. This report provides an essential evidence-based platform from which coordinated policy and programmatic responses can be developed.

We seek to use this work to inform research, education, policy, and practice in ways that are emancipatory to women and girls with disabilities. It is our hope that readers will use this research to inform their own work and spur discussions and partnerships that collectively move us beyond the barriers that women and girls with disabilities face and towards solutions-based action informed by lived experience.

“This milestone report marks a sea-change in what we know about the experiences of women and girls with disabilities. By gathering and highlighting current research – research that prioritizes the voices of women and girls with disabilities -- DAWN Canada and its partners help to shift away from notions of women and girls with disabilities as victims, vulnerable and invisible. This report confirms and recognizes their vital role as leaders and actors for women's rights and for their own rights.”

Professor Deborah Stienstra, Jarislowsky Chair in Families and Work

More Than A Footnote: A Research Report on Women and Girls with Disabilities in Canada is a call to action that affirms the urgency for a national discussion that focuses on the full social, economic and political inclusion of women and girls with disabilities.

DAWN Canada wishes to acknowledge the important contributions of our partners to this research: People First of Canada, Realize, and the Acquired Brain Injury Research Lab.

“More than a Footnote is a vital new resource that brings an intersectional lens to current research on women and girls with disabilities, and through this process, flags critical gaps in our knowledge and policy areas that demand new thinking and bold action. It will serve as a touchstone for future policy and program work to ensure the full inclusion and rights of women and girls with disabilities.”

Katherine Scott, Senior Economist, Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives

Funding for this report was provided by the Office for Disability Issues, Employment and Social Development Canada.

More Than A Footnote: A Research Report on Women and Girls with Disabilities in Canada - Full Report

More Than A Footnote: Executive Summary