Activate Orange-Centered Disability Inclusion.

Violence against women and girls with disabilities is a significant issue that is related to both gender and disability-based discrimination and exclusion. Combined, these two factors result in an extremely high risk of violence against girls and women with disabilities.

Women and girls with disabilities are particularly targeted by perpetrators of violence because of social exclusion, limited mobility, a lack of support structures, communication barriers, and negative social perceptions. The range of violence experienced by women and girls with disabilities can include physical and sexual violence, as well as emotional and verbal abuse.

There are over one billion people with disabilities in the world, corresponding to about 15 per cent of the world’s population, and disability disproportionately affects vulnerable populations. The Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities recognizes that women and girls with disabilities are often at greater risk of violence, injury and abuse and that disability adds another layer of discrimination and deprivation. Women and girls with disabilities, who make up almost one-fifth of the world’s population of women, are at least two to three times more likely than other women to experience gender-based violence in the private and public spheres, including at their homes and family settings, schools, psychiatric settings, residential facilities or institutions, as well as online and in emergency situations.

The unique intersection of gender and disability must be explored in greater depth in order to ensure that the complexities of violence against women and girls with disabilities are properly understood and addressed.