Violence, women with disabilities run a triple risk of mistreatment and abuse, including sexual abuse

Maria arrived at the Center accompanied by a neighbor. She has a motor disability and is visibly exhausted, full of bruises, exhausted by her husband’s beatings. «What struck me was seeing the neighbor who couldn’t rest because, as she herself told the operators, she had heard noises and bangs coming from the apartment next door, but she thought that Maria had fallen, or that she was doing some work around the house with her husband”, says the doctor Giada Morandi, Coordinator of Anti-Violence Service for People with Disabilities The Lotus Flower of the Municipality of Turin. «This is the perfect example: you never think that women with disabilities can also suffer violence».

Because if the violence against women it’s a problem increasingly seriouswith data getting worse from year to year, the situation becomes even more more dramatic when it comes to women with disabilitieswho, precisely because of their condition, are often more vulnerable and have greater difficulty reporting or denouncing what they suffer. This creates a spiral that exposes them to an even higher risk of violence, both physical and psychological. A horror within a horror which, even if disturbing, is best not to remain submerged and to come to the surface.

Violence, with disability the risk doubles

The numbers speak clearly. According to ISTAT research from 2014, women with disabilities have a 2-3 times greater risk of suffering violence than others. After ten years the situation is not improving, on the contrary: after Covid it seemed to explode. The Lotus Flower – the only public center in Italy specifically addressed to people with disabilities, managed by Municipality of Turin and fromVerba Associationin co-planning with ASL City of Turin – has recorded a worrying increase: this year (as of mid-November) 107 requests for intervention have already arrived, compared to the 80 recorded as of 31 December 2023.

The importance of raising awareness

Increase awareness it’s the first step to break the silence that too often surrounds these stories and bring to light a problem that can no longer remain hidden. At the level nationali data of the phenomenon remain disaggregated and difficult to measure: because the women with disabilities who report are very few, and they are almost always the ones who are unaware of being subjected to violence. «They think that basically a few slaps from those who look after them and follow them every day, or rather should do so, okay» explains Dr. Morandi. Even if the phenomenon of violence results, according to the national trend, growingin Turin are optimistic because «the number of people with disabilities who turn to us is growing every year. An important thing to point out is also that, out of the total number of people with disabilities who have asked us for help, around 15% are men, who are finally no longer ashamed to ask for help.”

The Center deals transversally with all disabilitiesfrom the psychic to the motor, from the visual to the auditory. In percentage, and the data reflect the national situation, the prevalence from the sexual violence occurs on women with mental disorders; women with motor disabilities are more often subject to mistreatment physicists, while the economic and psychological violence is transverse and always associated to the first two forms of violence. Unfortunately a role in sexual violence (harassment or rape) i also have it social: «It often happens that, especially women with mental problems, come lured on Facebook or on TikTok or Instagram, after which the victim is invited to the harasser’s home or lured to an isolated place and the affair ends with a non-consensual relationship, that is, with a rape real”, highlights Morandi.

Women with mental disabilities are easier to deceive as they are more defenseless, without filters or prejudices, however they often have the possibility of leaving home even to run small errands. They are also the first to not be believed when they report the abuse to their carers or family members. The incident is then discovered, often but not always, during checks and medical visits: «In Turin we have opened an accessible clinic with a gynecological practice: here the patients perhaps come to have a simple pap test, but then, during during the visit it turns out that the woman has suffered sexual violence”, explains the coordinator of the Centre.

The deterrent to reporting: secondary victimization

However, even if, as mentioned, the number of women with disabilities who turn to Anti-Violence Centers is slowly growing, almost no victims report it. “In my entire career I will have received a total of 3 or 4 complaints”, comments theLawyer Marinella Ruffattolegal advisor of the Centre. By reporting the situation, the situation often extends to the children (if there are any), involving the Juvenile Court. Furthermore there is the theme of secondary victimizationi.e. the process,]which, for procedural purposes, brings to life several times the violence suffered to the victim: it is a dangerous phenomenon, which increasingly distances all women, not just those with disabilities, from filing complaints”. In short, it is a real deterrent that exposes the victim, who already feels fear and shame, too much to the judgment of others. «What we try to do is prepare for the trial, supporting the victims and accompanying them throughout the entire process», continues the lawyer Rossitto. “We try to protect as much as possible women who already disesteem themselves, believe they are worth less than others and do not have the same rights.”

Morandi intervenes in this regard: «We are asked for a lot of psychological support, but the typical phrase we hear is “If I have to report it, however, I’ll leave”. We always tend to respect the will of the woman. The complaint part, as an official procedure when women are in conditions for which they need to be hospitalized and go to the emergency room, or in extreme cases where their lives are at risk. Furthermore, support also comes from the observation and vigilance of proximity nuclei, that is, traffic police with special functions, without considering that the entire urban fabric is also constantly monitored by the social workers».

Prevention and protection: are we doing enough?

But compared to today’s situation, could new legal mechanisms be put in place? «In our system all the laws are there aimed at preventing abuse first, and then protecting the victim”, explains Lawyer Ruffatto. «The problem is actual operation of these rules. For example, you do not take advantage of the Free Patronagethanks to which the victim of violence has the right to free defense (many cases of refusal to report occur for economic reasons) and there is no access to the recent legislation of the Code Red. So it’s about making that work Already exists. But it is also necessary prepare the operators of the anti-violence centers do better at welcoming and listening to women with disabilities, and making more accessible the Anti-Violence Centers themselves.”

Above all, at a national level, two factors are fundamental: being able to have, at a territorial level, both certain data that finally take into account the fact that violence against disabled women is a phenomenon intersectional – in which different identity factors overlap that lead to discrimination (in this case being women and being women with disabilities) – both a work by awareness and awareness of the problem by everyone. Pbecause, as the psychologist writes Marta Sousa on Inform an H «violence against women (disabled or otherwise) is not just a problem for women, but for the entire society».