The Silent Struggle: Disabled Women Share Their Experiences of Intimate Partner Abuse
New research from the School of Social Work and Social Policy has found that 98% of abused disabled women feel that having a disability has major impacts on seeking help and coping with intimate partner abuse.
The study “Disabled Women’s Experience of Intimate Partner Abuse in Ireland” was carried out in partnership with Women’s Aid and the Disabled Gender Based Violence Taskforce.
The research provides a deeper understanding of the levels of violence and abuse against disabled women and provides clear recommendations to enhance specialist support services and improve systems and structures to break down the barriers victims-survivors encounter.
The study included a survey of disabled women who had experienced intimate partner abuse. This survey found that disability had a strong impact on the experience of abuse and the ability to get help. 96% of women believed that their disability made it harder to cope with intimate partner abuse while 60% of women experienced disability specific abuse including the lack of support to do everyday activities, for example, basic mobility support to use the toilet, get dressed or leave the house, and name calling about disability (70%). Overall, 68% of disabled women perceived professionals were less likely to believe their disclosures of intimate partner abuse because they were disabled.
Dr Susan Flynn, School of Social Work and Social Policy, said: “The findings of this unique research report tell us that disability has big impacts on help seeking and coping. The impacts of intimate partner abuse on disabled women in our study were extremely serious. Impacts often were related in some way to disability such as women being unable to leave an abuser, or an unsafe place, due to not having help to move their bodies. Disabled women had types of abuse related to disability, that made the types of abuse they suffered that weren’t to do with disability even more acute.”
Dr Flynn added: “This also tells us that disabled women can find it much harder to access support, and safety for many reasons including 68% of survey respondents sharing their fears that they would be less likely to be believed by professionals because of their disability. 39% of our respondents told no one about what was happening to them, and this is something that we need to change as a matter of urgency. No-one should suffer in silence.”
Sarah Benson, CEO of Women’s Aid, explained: “This groundbreaking research lifts the lid on a very hidden part of the experience of intimate partner abuse against women in Ireland. For the first time, we are hearing from disabled women directly about the abuse they have endured and the barriers they encounter. We heard experiences of being physically hurt and sexually abused as well as economic and emotional abuse, comparable with what non-disabled women experience. However, disabled women experiencing intimate partner abuse seem to suffer higher rates of physical, economic and sexual violence than abused non-disabled women.”
Ms Benson added: “In addition, through the survey and the more in-depth one-to-one interviews, we found that disabled women felt as though their freedom was restricted as their abuser coercively controlled them. The women’s disabilities were often used against them. Women disclosed that their medication was withheld, that they were deliberately exposed to Covid-19 despite being immuno-compromised, that basic care and mobility needs were denied and that their disability was used to portray them as unfit parents.”
Gladys O’Neill, a member of the research team and member of the Disabled Gender-Based Violence Taskforce, said: “This research is giving a voice to so many women who have been silent until now about their awful experiences at the hands of those who were supposed to be their loving partners. We owe it to the women who had the courage to share their experiences to listen to their stories, to the things that made it feel so hard or impossible for them to safely escape abuse. We must acknowledge that this is happening all over the country and pay attention to the recommendations in this report which we need to implement immediately.”
Dr Aoife Price, a member of the research team and member of the Disabled Gender-Based Violence Taskforce added: “This spotlight on disabled women’s experience of intimate partner abuse should not be examined in isolation. There are so many structures and systems in Ireland that are making participation in public life, in daily tasks, in education and in all facets of Irish society an uphill struggle for disabled people, and women in particular. It should not surprise us that this leads to situations where disabled women can be treated so cruelly in their private lives – but at the same time this is shocking reading because it has not been talked about enough. Many of the recommendations here can contribute to vindicating disabled women’s human rights to access support, safety and justice, but these must be supported by broader improvements to systems and structures to allow full participation of disabled people in all facets of Irish life – public and private.”
Sarah Benson concluded: “As a national frontline domestic violence organisation committed to social change and improving responses for all women suffering abuse this has been an important collaboration directly with disabled advocates and academics. This report shows us gaps but also tells us how we can collaborate to improve responses. We know there is much work to be done and now is the time to accelerate this. Disabled women must be better supported as autonomous adults to understand what constitutes abuse, to know it is not their fault, to know where and how to receive help and to have that help provided in an accessible manner. They need to know they will be believed, and perpetrators of abuse, especially when masquerading as ‘carer’, must be held to account.”
The research report outlines 28 recommendations to ensure the safety, welfare and protection of disabled women experiencing intimate partner abuse including prioritisation of the issue in the government’s third national strategy on domestic, sexual and gender-based violence. Importantly, resources must be made available to improve the accessibility of courts and domestic violence services, provision of training to legal professionals, domestic violence support staff and disability support organisations on the dynamics and impacts of coercive control and the specific needs of disabled women suffering intimate partner abuse.