A new Government report presents findings from an evidence review on disabled people’s lived experiences of harassment and victimisation including themes of hate crime and bullying, domestic and intimate violence, child abuse, and adult safeguarding. Below is a a summary of the findings pls a BSL version. You can read the full report here.
Summary of Findings
Targeted violence and harassment towards disabled people occurs on a spectrum. It ranges from:
- staring to name-calling
- verbal abuse to physical and sexual violence
- damage to property, through to murder
Disabled people experience hate crimes in a wide range of settings, including:
- public transport
- educational establishments
- specialist facilities
- local neighbourhoods
- over the internet and telephone
This results in a lack of safe spaces in which to live and work.
The evidence review also found the following.
Disabled people face inadequate, offensive and inappropriate responses from the criminal justice system. This leads to a lack of confidence in reporting crime.
Perceptions of offending were often blurred if the offender was familiar to the victim. For example, in so-called ‘mate crime’ incidents which are under-recorded. This is when someone pretends to be friends with someone to take advantage of them.
Experiences and fear of violence, harassment or abuse are barriers to social inclusion. People change their behaviour, avoiding people, places and times associated with victimisation.
Domestic and intimate partner abuse has drawn recent attention from qualitative researchers. It has revealed the targeting of disabled women for severe violence and abuse, but has had less emphasis on men’s experiences.
Victim and survivor support was often lacking, inappropriate or insensitive to disabled women’s needs. Little is known about those who remain in abusive relationships or who do not have contact with services.
Abuse is particularly difficult to deal with or escape from if the abuser provides personal assistance or care to the victim.
Studies of the experience of child abuse among disabled people rely on retrospective adult accounts. These may reflect different social and policy contexts in the past. There is also a risk that practitioners may overlook emotional, behavioural or physical scars of violence. This might be because they confuse them with a child’s impairment characteristics.
Young people with learning difficulties have not been educated enough about sex and relationships. This would help them to understand issues such as exploitative relationships and consent.
Controlling adult safeguarding practices can protect disabled people from abuse. But they can also facilitate abuse if disabled people are not meaningfully involved in decision making.