This will probably be of interest to readers – at least some of our readers.
Dick Sobsey’s latest post on ICAD concerns recent research on Abuse & Disability:
This post lists 15 studies on the relationship between abuse and disability that were published in 2008 and 2009. A brief description of each study is reported.
Read the complete entry at Violence & Disability: 15 Recent Studies.
I have a hunch that all of us who are disabled, are very much interested.
I’d like to see some easy-to-read articles,possibly summaries. The subject is scary to me. I’m a woman.
I’m disabled.
Over the years of knowing disabled artists, I have known two who wrote me about the abuse they experienced, one with a lover and one with a spouse of 50 years. (I destroyed their communications.) One woman was able to leave her abusive lover. The other said she’d told her doctor, and he suggested she do something for the stress…after 50 years of being beaten by her husband. She is dead now.
There are reports of rape in institutions, and hospitals,of women,of all ages, and girls, by staff.
“Tip of the iceberg”. I’d like to know how these abuses are being addressed by various aspects of government. Who gets punished?
Mary Johnson, in “Disability Rag” wrote about it years ago. Is there any positive change?
I once asked people giving classes in self-defense for women:how would they include disabled women, including wheelchair users, and they said they did,wheelchair users. (It was Y related and some years ago.)
I’d start with giving all girls, in all educational settings, classes in self-defense, adapting for whatever ways we could. Loud horns on wheelchairs? (In the 1970s, women were told to carry police whistles for calling for help.)
(I once was angry at a politician, who caused the death, indirectly, of a disabled woman,forced to work, by having an agency deny benefits for almost any “reason”. My fantasy was pushing the executive of the city, to the wall with my power wheelchair, should we ever be in the same elevator. A little humor…)