Gender, Disability and Care consultant

Background:

UN Women, grounded in the vision of equality enshrined in the Charter of the United Nations, works for the elimination of discrimination against women and girls; the empowerment of women; and the achievement of equality between women and men as partners and beneficiaries of development, human rights, humanitarian action and peace and security. 

Care and support systems fundamentally shape societies and economies, impacting how they function. However, this provision of care remains uneven, predominantly leaning on the unpaid labor of women, including women with disabilities, contributing to gender inequalities by constraining women's time and limiting their access to opportunities and economic security. The Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action, Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women, Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities and 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development can be employed to strengthen the international policy framework on gender equality for women and girls with disabilities, while reaffirming the human rights-based model of disability.

Families play a fundamental role in providing care and support to children with disabilities, including protecting and promoting their rights and building capacities for independent living in the communities. This role often extends and evolves throughout the lifecycle – including into older age - for both those providing and receiving support, reflecting cultural values as well as insufficient formal systems for support and services. 

Female family members - particularly mothers – in households with children with disabilities, disproportionately assume caregiving and support responsibilities, and perform more unpaid care and domestic work than men. This is largely done in an invisible, unpaid, and unrecognized manner, and often without adequate support. These factors are often accompanied by the notable absence of policies and support systems specifically addressing the needs of families – and particularly women—who provide care and support to persons with disabilities, including children as a result, these women and girls face distinct challenges to their human rights, well-being, and inclusion in society.  The challenges they encounter include:

• Emotional and mental health strain, sometimes leading to stress and isolation from community life and support networks, often compounded by societal stigma.
• Economic hardship, as many women must reduce remunerated work hours or leave employment entirely to provide unpaid care and support. This is often exacerbated by insufficient disability benefits like allowances and inclusive social support systems, pushing families closer to poverty.
• Limited access to education and training that could help them manage their responsibilities or improve their economic prospects.

Nonetheless, this topic has not received significant attention in studies on support to persons with disabilities and their families, gender equality, and the recognition, reduction and redistribution of unpaid care and support work. Equally, disability-disaggregated data on unpaid care and support, including caregivers who themselves have disabilities, remains limited. 

The consultant will be reporting to the Global Adviser and Team Leader, Gender Equality and Disability Inclusion, United Nations Coordination System Division and will be supported by an Administrative Associate who will be the point of contact on the contract and payment issues.

Description of Responsibilities/ Scope of Work

Explore the gendered impacts of caring and supporting a child with disabilities, and how the rights of women and girls as well as the rights of persons with disabilities are affected as a result. It will further aim to identify good practices to reduce and redistribute the disproportionate share of care and support undertaken by mothers of children with disabilities and that promote and protect the rights of women and girls as well as the rights of persons (and especially children) with disabilities.

Key themes of interest will include: 

• Investigate the distribution of care and support responsibilities for children with disabilities within the family, including differences to other families. How much more care and support tasks do women, including women with disabilities, provide in a household with a child with disabilities compared to men and compared to women in other families? 
• Outline how unpaid care and support work impacts on women’s physical and mental health, adequate standard of living, economic independence and livelihoods, personal growth, etc. along the lifecycle (long terms impacts into older age). Identify stories and experiences that can be highlighted in the brief with the consent of the persons concerned.  
• The impact of societal and cultural norms and beliefs affecting families of children with disabilities, particularly mothers (e.g. family separation, abandonment, isolation). 
• Good practices of care and support policies and measures that had concrete impact on the well-being of families of children with disabilities, particularly mothers.
• Existing challenges and barriers in policies and programmatic activities on care and support to persons with disabilities that (inadvertently) reinforce gendered-roles – e.g. focus on women in trainings on home- and community-based rehabilitation and education or in becoming paid personal assistants to their children, and others. 
• How can policies and projects on redistribution of unpaid care and support target and include households with children with disabilities, including data collection (e.g. time-use surveys)?

Deliverables

A consultant is being recruited to assist with the preparation of the joint brief and inform other reports.

Competencies :

Core Values:

• Integrity;
• Professionalism;
• Respect for Diversity.

Core Competencies:

• Awareness and Sensitivity Regarding Gender Issues;
• Accountability;
• Creative Problem Solving;
• Effective Communication;
• Inclusive Collaboration;
• Stakeholder Engagement;
• Leading by Example.

Please visit this link for more information on UN Women’s Values and Competencies Framework: 

Functional Competencies:

• Substantive understanding of Disability Inclusion and Gender Equality. 
• Strong knowledge of social protection, care and support policies, and the rights of the child is desirable.
• Exposure to working with organizations of persons with disabilities, including of women with disabilities, and feminist civil society organizations, is desirable.
• Ability to plan, organize, implement and report on work with attention to detail.
• Excellent English writing and communications skills required. (Sample of previous work will be required.)

Education and Certification:

• Master’s degree or higher in human rights law, international relations or related areas/fields is required.
• A first-level university degree in combination with two additional years of qualifying experience may be accepted in lieu of the advanced university degree.

Experience:

• At least 5 years of progressively responsible experience in human rights is required. 
• Experience in gender and the human rights of persons with disabilities is required. 
• Experience of undertaking research and analysis is required. 
• Experience in social protection, care and support policies, and the rights of the child is desirable.

Languages:

• Fluency in English is required.
• Knowledge of French, Spanish or Arabic is an asset.

Statements :

In July 2010, the United Nations General Assembly created UN Women, the United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women. The creation of UN Women came about as part of the UN reform agenda, bringing together resources and mandates for greater impact. It merges and builds on the important work of four previously distinct parts of the UN system (DAW, OSAGI, INSTRAW and UNIFEM), which focused exclusively on gender equality and women's empowerment.

Diversity and inclusion:

At UN Women, we are committed to creating a diverse and inclusive environment of mutual respect. UN Women recruits, employs, trains, compensates, and promotes regardless of race, religion, color, sex, gender identity, sexual orientation, age, ability, national origin, or any other basis covered by appropriate law. All employment is decided on the basis of qualifications, competence, integrity and organizational need.

If you need any reasonable accommodation to support your participation in the recruitment and selection process, please include this information in your application.

UN Women has a zero-tolerance policy on conduct that is incompatible with the aims and objectives of the United Nations and UN Women, including sexual exploitation and abuse, sexual harassment, abuse of authority and discrimination. All selected candidates will be expected to adhere to UN Women’s policies and procedures and the standards of conduct expected of UN Women personnel and will therefore undergo rigorous reference and background checks. (Background checks will include the verification of academic credential(s) and employment history. Selected candidates may be required to provide additional information to conduct a background check.)

Note: Applicants must ensure that all sections of the application form, including the sections on education and employment history, are completed. If all sections are not completed the application may be disqualified from the recruitment and selection process.