18th February 2020
Around the world, women and girls with disabilities are particularly vulnerable to various forms of gender-based violence, including domestic and sexual violence. They face intersecting forms of discrimination based on their gender and disability and are often denied access to justice and protection mechanisms.
Women and girls with disabilities, particularly with psycho-social needs, face a number of barriers in accessing justice for different forms of violence, including domestic and sexual violence. The barriers include the lack of sufficient means (including technical) to report violence to the authorities; the lack of knowledge of law enforcement on how to obtain witness statements from women with disabilities (including from women with psycho-social needs); and the intersection of disability and gender-related prejudices through the process that many times leads to the impunity of perpetrators.
Submitted by Equality Now.