On the Margins: Violence Against Women with Disabilities

The Centre for the Study of Violence and Reconciliation (CSVR) undertook a small-scale exploratory research project on gender-based violence and disabled women. We aimed to make visible the nature and forms of
violence against women with disabilities, their particular vulnerabilities to violence, and the barriers they confront accessing assistance. The study focused on women with physical, visual and hearing disabilities. Women with developmental (or mental) disabilities, as well as learning or psychiatric impairments, were not included in the ambit of the study. Being a small, exploratory study, it also did not aim to derive statistics on the prevalence of gender-based violence affecting disabled women.

 

onthemargins
Ereshnee Naidu

Ereshnee Naidu is an expert on peace building, social and transitional justice. She is currently the Senior Program Director for the Global Transitional Justice Initiative, New York.  She earned her Bachelor of Arts and two Masters of Arts degrees from the University of Witwatersrand in South Africa, the first in Dramatic Arts (1998) and the second in Forced Migration Studies (2004). She subsequently earned her PhD in Sociology from the Graduate Center of the City University of New York.

Lisa Vetten

Lisa Vetten is the former manager of the Gender Programme at the Centre for the study of Violence and Reconciliation. In 2013 she obtained a Master of Arts degree in Political Studies (cum laude) from the University of the Witwatersrand. Her dissertation was entitled 'Deserving and undeserving women: A case study of South African policy and legislation addressing domestic violence.

Samantha Hargreaves

Samantha Hargreaves is a researcher and the International Shared Learning Coordinator at Action Aid International, a global movement of people fighting for women’s rights, climate justice and an end to poverty.