Violence against women with intellectual disabilities.

Women with intellectual disabilities are at greater risk of being targets of physical, sexual, or psychological violence. They are even at greater risk when they are living in institutions, making them completely dependable on care givers and isolated from the rest of society. Inclusion Europe fights for the closing down of institutions, and for women with intellectual disabilities to be included in their communities to make them less vulnerable from abuse.

Violence against women with intellectual disabilities

Women with disabilities experience violence at significantly higher rates than women without disabilities1. They experience violence more frequently, for longer, in more ways, and by more perpetrators. Women with disabilities have considerably fewer pathways to safety, and are less likely to report experiences of violence.

Women with disabilities face domestic violence at a rate that is twice as high as that of women without disabilities worldwide. They encounter specific forms of violence that are directly linked to their disabilities: isolation, violence in institutions, and the denial of necessary medication, or accessibility aids.

Women with intellectual disabilities responded to a survey are also at higher risk to experience sexual violence:

  • 61% of women with disabilities were victims of sexual harassment since the age of 15.
  • 26% of women with disabilities were stalked;
  • 46% of women with disabilities said they suffered from a physical, sexual or psychological violence before the age of 15.

Women with intellectual disabilities are at the highest risk, especially if they live in institutions.

A report by Inclusion Europe identified 3 main areas of violence:

  • Direct violence: when someone intentionally tries to hurt someone, person to person. It is also called ‘personal violence’, and can be done sexually, physically, psychologically, financially or through neglect.
  • Careless attitude: when someone gets hurt because someone they depend upon does not care about them.
  • Structural violence: when someone is hurt through societal structures, systems of power and control, or rules and regulations.

On top of the violence and abuse, there is a lack of trust, and there are not enough services, recovery mechanisms or restorative justice to help them cope with the violence they were victims of. This leads to double victimisation and less pathways to safety. Women with intellectual disabilities are in the end far less likely to report violence.

Forced sterilisation and abortion

People with intellectual disabilities, especially those under guardianship, are more likely to be at risk of being sterilised without their consent. Women and girls with disabilities are the most targeted. Sterilisation is a permanent way of birth control to make sure a woman cannot get pregnant anymore. If a woman with an intellectual disability does get pregnant, they are often forced to have an abortion.

The UN Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (UN CRPD) are worried about forced sterilisation and abortion of women and girls with disabilities. Forced sterilisation and abortion violates the human rights of women. It violates their right to choose what happens to their body, and it violates their right to privacy. It can also lead to life-long trauma.

However, forced sterilisation is still legal and widespread across Europe.

  • 9 EU countries forbid forced sterilisation
  • 14 EU countries still allow some forms of forced sterilisation
  • 3 EU countries allow the forced sterilisation of children under 18 years old.
  • 3 EU countries the use of birth control or sterilisation can be a requirement to live in an institution.

Protect, educate, empower

Deinstitutionalisation: Inclusion Europe advocates to close down institutions. All persons with disabilities have the right to independent living regardless of their disability under article 19 on independent living of the UN CPRD. The continued support and funding of institutions denies women with disabilities of this right and puts them at greater risk of violence.

Social integration and social protection: women with disabilities who have been institutionalised and experienced violence need support to re-enter society and recover from the trauma of their abuse(s). They also need the necessary social protection to fulfil their right to independent living.

Education: women with disabilities are excluded from mainstream education. other than from this being wrong in itself, it means they lose out on social and sexual education. They are removed from situations where one usually learns about boundaries with her peers. In their segregated education they are not given sex education classes due to common bias that people with intellectual disabilities are somehow not sexual.

What is Inclusion Europe working on?

Inclusion Europe has been supporting the ratification of the Council of Europe’s Istanbul Convention on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence by the EU and EU countries.

Therefore, the recent vote in the European Parliament in favour of the EU accession constitutes a landmark in the protection of women’s rights and security (tag convention).

The Convention specifically recognises the forms of violence faced by women and girls with disabilities, such as forced sterilisation. It also gives the tools to support victims with disabilities.