By Sheila Mckenzie
Campaigners are lobbying Mps to protect disabled people from systemic domestic abuse from various perpetrators including partners and carers.
Stay Safe East has been working closely with a number of organisations to tackle discrimination against people with disability.
Numbered among the organisations they are working with are the charity SignHealth, the disabled women’s collective Sisters of Frida, the disabled people’s organisations Choice in Hackney and Merton Centre for Independent Living, and the user-led organisation Disabled Survivors Unite.
Proposals have been sent to MPs to highlight the largely overlooked abuse and prejudices they are subjected to.
CEO of Stay Safe East, Ruth Bashall, told The Eye Of Media.Com that the abuse disabled people are subjected to is a lot higher than other victim groups of domestic violence.
She said: ” disabled people are subjected to abuse from carers, partners, and even family. The abuse takes all forms, from physical abuse to coercive abuse.
People assume that carers of disabled people are all benign saints , but its not true. Domestic abuse is about power, and disabled people are generally powerless in the face of their abusers. Only a small percentage of disabled people are sent to agencies.
There is a growing realisation that many disabled people are badly served by strategies, services, and policies. It is also about the responses they get from the police. Disabled people are less likely to be believed.
Although the anti-domestic abuse bill already contains important measures that could help protect and support disabled people, campaigners want MPs to do more to achieve substantial improvements.
Ms Bashall has increased her engagements with women’s organisations and the Home Office to address the plight of disabled people.
”Disabled people were also disproportionately affected by Covid-19, and there were Human Rights Abuses at the beginning of the crisis where a lot of disabled people were being told to sign an order rejecting treatment in the event they caught Covid 19.
I think a lot of people including MPs are beginning to see that a lot more needs to be done to safeguard the interest of disabled people.
Disabled women in particular are probably three times more likely to be victims of domestic abuse and four times more likely to be victims of sexual violence, in comparison with non-disabled women.
“It is a chance to say that disabled survivors matter and we will do our best to make sure they get an equal outcome.”
Stay Safe East have presented four key amendments that they want the government to incorporate in a bill.
The first is to remove the existing “carer’s defence” which allows a family member or partner accused of abuse to claim they were acting in the disabled person’s best interests.
Ms Bashall insists this “reinforces the widely help belief that carers are always benign”, and sends a clear message to the criminal justice system that disabled people are “vulnerable victims” who are “not worthy of protection” in the same way as non-disabled people.
Another key measure Stay Safe East want changed is to expand protection for disabled people so that the bill covers abuse not just by family, friends and partners but also paid care workers and personal assistants. In short, anybody who carry out unpaid caring duties.
Another key amendment they want to see is for domestic abuse involving
disability-related hostility prosecuted as both domestic abuse and hate crime.
Many disabled people are mocked and ridiculed by hostile individuals who call the hurtful names associated with their disability. In other cases, their medication is withheld at the expense of their physical or mental state