SPANISH COMMITTEE OF REPRESENTATIVES
OF PERSONS WITH DISABILITIES (CERMI)
SUBMISSION TO THE STUDY ON ‘STATE RESPONSIBILITY FOR ELIMINATING VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN’ TO BE DRAWN UP BY THE SPECIAL RAPPORTEUR ON VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN
VIOLENCE AGAINST GIRLS AND WOMEN WITH DISABILITIES IN SPAIN
1INTRODUCTION
CERMI, the organisation which represents the disability movement in Spain, has more than 7.000 member associations and organisations of persons with disabilities and their families. One of CERMI’s key goals is to advocate for the rights of persons with disabilities - more than 4 million people in Spain - and their families, in total approximately 10 million citizens. To achieve this aim, we gather information on situations which violate the rights of persons with disabilities as they are set out in the Spanish Constitution and in international instruments, including the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD).
In drafting this report as a submission for the report on state responsibility for eliminating violence against women which is to be prepared by the Special Rapporteur on Violence against Women, CERMI wishes to highlight the main violations which occur in order to learn from them with a view to eliminating them and restore rights to a group within society which is traditionally lacking in citizenship.
2BACKGROUND INFORMATION ON WOMEN AND GIRLS WITH DISABILITIES IN SPAIN
According to the Survey on Disability, Personal Autonomy and Dependence (known in Spanish as EDAD) carried out by the National Institute for Statistics in 2008, there are 3.85 million people with a disability in Spain. Of these, 60% are women. Disability rates by age groups show that there are slightly more men than women with disabilities up to the age of 44, while from the age of 45 onwards the opposite is the case and women with disabilities outnumber men with disabilities, with the gap becoming greater as age increases. Over sixty-five percent (67.2%) of all persons with disabilities have difficulties in terms of mobility or moving objects, 55.3% face difficulties in performing household tasks, and 48.4% report difficulties with personal care and hygiene.
According to the survey, the activity rate among persons with disabilities is 35.5% (40.3% for men and 31.2% among women). The overall employment rate for people with disabilities is 28.3% - 33.4% for men and 23.7% for women. The unemployment rate overall among people with disabilities is 20.3% - 17.2% among men and 24% for women. Whatever the case, the main feature of this female population is that it is an extremely heterogeneous group, but one which shares the experience of falling victim to high levels of multiple discrimination.
The figures show that women with disabilities are more likely to be illiterate, have lower educational attainment levels, lower activity rates in the labour market and/or lower paid jobs with fewer responsibilities, greater social isolation, lower self-esteem, greater financial dependence on their families and/or their support persons, greater socio-affective and emotional dependence, are more likely to suffer all types of violence, suffer from lower levels of social and personal development, are largely unaware of their sexuality and victims of numerous horrendous myths related to it, enjoy less social and health protection and have a low personal body image. This manifests itself in high rates of violence against women with disabilities.
3BACKGROUND INFORMATION ON VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN AND GIRLS WITH DISABILITIES
The number of reported cases of gender-based violence in Spain during the second quarter of 2011 reached a total of 34 347, a rise of 5.7% compared with the first quarter figures for the same year[1]. We have no data on the number of women with disabilities who are victims of physical or psychological abuse, but organisations of persons with disabilities are conscious that the figure is high. Such cases occur in the family setting, in homes and in health centres, among other places. Furthermore, it is not just women with greater support needs who fall victim; women of all kinds are involved. Having a disability, whatever the type of disability, makes the situation worse.
According to a report published by the European Parliament in 2004 on the situation faced by women from minority groups in the European Union, almost 80% of all women with disabilities suffer violence and they are four times more likely to suffer sexual violence than other women. While women with no disability are victims of violence perpetrated mainly by their partners or former partners, women with disabilities, 68% of whom live in institutions, are exposed to violence perpetrated by people around them, including health care personnel, service staff and carers.
Furthermore, according to the report ‘Violence and Disabled Women’, published in 1998 as part of the European Union-funded Metis project through the DAPHNE Initiative, in some European Union countries and, above all, in America, people with disabilities are the victims of abuse on a far greater scale than people without disabilities (the ratio varies from two to five times more).
In its report on ‘Abuse of the elderly in the family in Spain’, the Centro Reina Sofía reports that the vast majority of studies show a higher percentage of female victims than male victims (Cooney & Mortimer, 1995; González et al, 2005; Wolf, 1997). According to the same report, women are victims in 66% of all cases and, furthermore, it appears women are victims in the most serious cases of both physical and psychological abuse (Pillemer & Finkelhor, 1988).[2]
In line with the National Strategic Plan for Children and Adolescents, the General Directorate for Social Policy, the Family and Children and the Centro Reina Sofía for the study of violence have carried out research on ‘Child abuse in the family in Spain’. One of the conclusions of this quantitative research project is that disability is a key factor which greatly increases the risk of abuse. Among the key data the research provides is that abuse is more prevalent when the child has some type of physical or mental illness (7.8%, compared to 3.57% when no such illness is present), and children with some type of disability suffer higher rates of violence than those without disability (23.08% and 3.87% respectively).
Forced sterilisations and coerced abortions continue to occur in the case of women and girls with disabilities - and above all girls and women with intellectual or psychosocial disabilities - without their consent, without their understanding the specific purpose of the operation, and under the pretext of looking after the welfare of the person with disabilities.
Organisations of persons with disabilities have carried out a number of studies on violence against women with disabilities in Spain[3]. Nevertheless, the lack of specific studies and statistics regarding gender-based violence and disability impinges upon the reality faced by girls and women with disabilities in Spain. As occurs in other countries, disability has not been linked to the concept of gender-based violence in any significant nationwide study either by public institutions or academia.
It is, therefore, essential to incorporate disability effectively as an indicator and include it in official reports in order to visibilise the violence suffered by women with disabilities. It is necessary to gather data disaggregated by sex and other factors, including age, ethnic origin and disability, systematically in order to reach a detailed account of the prevalence of all types of violence against women, understand the causes and consequences of violence against women, and gauge the efficacy of measures adopted to prevent violence against women and provide for redress in such cases[4].
4MAIN CAUSES OF VIOLENCE AGAINST GIRLS AND WOMEN WITH DISABILITIES
The vulnerable situation in which girls and women with disabilities find themselves in relation to violence is closely linked to two key factors:
- The social perception that men and women are not equal, leading to social and physical domination by men over women;
- The way in which disability is perceived by society; the bodies and/or minds of people with disabilities are viewed differently from others - they are considered incapable and sick and, as a result, abnormal.
The intersection[5] of these two factors is the principal cause and the reason behind many violations, inequalities and infringements concerning the fundamental rights of women and girls with disabilities in society.
One of the consequences of this intersectionality is the negative self-perception held by women and girls with disabilities, often aggravated by a lack of training (including a lack of training on their rights[6] and their sexuality), unemployment, limited or no economic independence and the fact that they often work informally in the family, performing tasks which are rarely suitable for them due to their disability.
A negative self-perception is particularly evident when the disability is more severe. In such cases a lack of suitable habilitation or rehabilitation can lead to women with disabilities facing situations in which they are defenceless when it comes to repelling and confronting abuse and mistreatment. In particular, when the disability is acquired during adulthood it will lead in many cases to a situation of dependency which makes these women with disabilities even more vulnerable[7].
Greater vulnerability among women with disabilities is also linked to their social image and to reasons - often irrational - put forward to explain or justify sexual abuse perpetrated on them. As a result, the community environments in which they live often do not provide inclusive resources for them, and this makes them even more vulnerable in the face of violence. This leads to the following:
- Greater difficulties when reporting abuse due of communication barriers;
- Difficulties in accessing places where information and guidance is available, mainly due to physical, technological and communication barriers;
- Conflict between the traditional roles assigned to women and a denial of these roles in the case of women with disabilities;
- Higher rate of dependency on assistance and care from others;
- Fear of reporting abuse as they are afraid of breaking links and losing assistance;
- They are afforded less credence when communicating and reporting violence. In some circles they may not be believed;
- They often live in environments where violence is able to flourish: dysfunctional families, institutions, residences and hospitals.
This discrimination against girls and women with disabilities encourages a culture of impunity in violence. In this sense, many girls and women with disabilities suffer exploitation, violence and abuse in the home and in other settings. This violence includes rape, forced sterilisation, coerced abortion and involuntary treatment. These acts may even constitute torture or inhuman or degrading treatment.
Women with severe mental disabilities are particularly vulnerable to violence in all its forms, with the resulting damage to their health. In addition, they find it extremely difficult to access resources for women who are victims of gender-based violence because they are denied such resources due to their psychiatric diagnosis. More specifically, violence by partners and former partners against women with severe mental disabilities is more common than violence against women who do not have this disability and may lead to more incidences of hospitalisation, a worsening of the condition and an increased risk of suicide[8].
Women with disabilities who are residents in institutions are particularly vulnerable to this type of violence. Exclusion and isolation from society faced by women with disabilities in separate schools and residential institutions, coupled with a lack of support to promote mobility and a lack of technical aids - and the lack of training necessary to use them - contribute to impunity in the case of acts of violence.
Discriminatory legislation that fails to recognise independence and the legal capacity of persons with disabilities, for instance the laws sanctioning guardianship for adults and sectioning in institutions, increases vulnerability to violence and impunity in such cases. These laws are part of the systematic violence against girls and women with disabilities, and in particular against women with psychosocial or intellectual disabilities and older women.
5ORGANIC LAW 1/2004 ON COMPREHENSIVE PROTECTION MEASURES AGAINST GENDER-BASED VIOLENCE
According to this law, gender-based violence is understood to be, “any act of violence which, as a manifestation of discrimination, a situation of inequality or exercise of power by men over women, is carried out on women by their spouses or former spouses or by those who are or have been involved with them in similar affective relationships, including those which do not or did not involve living together”. The law further refers to, “all acts of physical and psychological violence, including deprivation of sexual freedom, threats, coercion and the arbitrary deprivation of freedom”.
Bearing this in mind, girls and women with disabilities are more likely to suffer acts of violence and are more vulnerable to such acts as a result of their defencelessness due to serious disability or the manner in which the assailant interprets the act of abuse against a woman with disabilities.
One further aspect to gender-based violence in relation to disability is violence perpetrated in closed institutions (residences, homes, hospitals, etc.) where persons with disabilities continue to be sent. Although no precise and completely accurate data are available due to a lack of studies in the field, it is a proven fact that institutionalising people with disabilities, and especially women with disabilities, goes hand in hand with higher rates of mistreatment and violence due, above all, to the vulnerability created by such closed and segregated institutions.
The Toronto Declaration on the global prevention of elder abuse defines it as “a single or repeated act, or lack of appropriate action, occurring within any relationship where there is an expectation of trust which causes harm or distress to an older person”. This shows the need to review current psychiatric and gerontology care service provision, which focuses exclusively on the biomedical needs of older people. Within this context it is extremely difficult to provide for the specific typology of each disability and some are excluded as they are considered ‘complex’, for instance mental illness. As a result, there is either no provision or insufficient provision to improve the physical, social and psychological status of people in this situation[9].
In this respect, the declaration goes on to state that, “Equally important is to consider a gender perspective as the complex social constructs related to it help to identify the form of abuse inflicted by whom”, and highlights women as one of the particularly vulnerable sub-groups, alongside the very old, those with limited functional capacity and the poor.
While the enactment of this legislation is a major step forward, CERMI believes it is necessary to widen the scope of the law in order to recognise all situations involving violence against girls and women with disabilities, including institutional violence, coerced abortion and forced sterilisation as alternative forms of violence, in addition to extending its reach to include specific measures aimed at providing solutions to gender-based violence against girls and women with disabilities and provide for concrete programmes to raise awareness, prevent and secure care services in cases of gender-based violence against girls and women with disabilities.
Despite the lack of provision for such cases, the Organic Law is undoubtedly a key achievement for Spanish society as a whole. Among the articles covering the situation faced by women with disabilities the following are worth highlighting:
a)Article 3.3 states that, “informative campaigns and awareness-raising efforts to combat these forms of violence shall be developed; these shall be accessible for persons with disabilities”.
b)Article 17.1 guarantees that the rights enshrined in the law shall be applicable to all women who are victims of gender-based violence, regardless of “any other condition or personal or social circumstances”.
c)Article 18.2 sets out provision for special protection for women with disabilities who fall victim to gender-based violence by establishing “full access to information on their rights and regarding available resources”. Particular attention is therefore paid to persons with disabilities in respect of communication, and information should be provided “in accessible and understandable formats...such as sign language and other types of communication, including alternative and augmentative systems”.
d)Articles 27.2 and 27.4 provide for an increase in the amount offered as one-off payment to victims of gender-based violence whose income is below 75% of the minimum salary. However, if the victim has a legally-recognised disability of 33% or more, payment increases further to twelve months of unemployment benefit. Should the victim have family responsibilities, overall support rises to eighteen months, but if the victim or any of the relatives who share a home with her has a legally-recognised disability of 33% or more, support increases to twenty-four months of unemployment benefit.
e)Section 4 in article 32 addresses the so-called Co-operation Plans and states that, “In activities foreseen in this article particular attention shall be given to women who, due to their personal and social circumstances, may be exposed to a greater risk of suffering gender-based violence or may encounter greater difficulties in accessing the services provided for in this act, such as those who belong to minority groups, immigrants, women who are socially excluded and women with disabilities”.
f)Disability is also considered in terms of training. Article 47 stipulates that, “The government, the General Council of the Judiciary and regional governments, in accordance with their respective areas of competence, shall ensure specific training on equality, non-discrimination on the grounds of sex and gender-based violence is included in training courses given to judges and magistrates, prosecutors, legal secretaries, law enforcement personnel and forensic doctors. In all cases the training courses mentioned above shall include the perspective of victims’ disabilities”.
As regards the content of the law, CERMI recommends consideration is given to the following areas and actions: