Human Rights and Disability A Manual for National Human Rights Institutions Article 34(4) of the CRPD states that the “members of the [CRPD] Committee shall be elected by States Parties, consideration being given to…balanced gender representation.” Unfortunately, as a result of the CRPD committee 2016 election, only one of its 18 members was a woman. In April 2017, the CRPD Committee adopted a statement on achieving gender balance amongst its members. Although the Committee recognizes that the 2016 elections helped achieve greater disability diversity, it expressed concern about the “absence of gender parity”, noting that equality between men and women is one of the principles of the CRPD. The Committee called on States Parties “to be mindful of the need to promote … the inclusion of women with disabilities in future elections of the Committee to secure equal geographical representation and restore gender balance….”121 Theresia Degener, Chair of the Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, addresses the Tenth Session of the Conference of States Parties to the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. UN Photo/Kim Haughton, reproduced under a CC BY-NC-ND 2.0 licence 56