The ACT Election is scheduled for 19 October 2024 and Disabled Peoples and Representative Organisations offer these priorities for voters and candidates in the lead up to the poll. We are non-partisan organisations which represent people with a range of disabilities. Our work and priorities are informed by the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disability.
In the next ACT Legislative Assembly, we call on the Government and members to work towards an inclusive and welcoming Canberra which delivers the promise of a Human Rights Jurisdiction for the 1 in 5 Canberrans with disability.
Elected representatives should prioritise addressing stigma, ableism and discrimination in the ACT that currently results in high rates of violence against people with disabilities, and discrimination against parents and children with disabilities threatening the right to raise a family and the right to access support to do so.
Quotes attributable to disability organisations
“Women with disabilities experience unique forms of gendered violence, and at a significantly higher rate. The ACT should be leading the charge in intersectional, ambitious violence prevention policy. We call on the ACT Government to commit to fully funding an intersectional Domestic, Family and Sexual Violence Strategy.”
“Everyone has the right to be a parent if they choose. However, parents and children with disabilities experience the impacts of ableism, stigma and discrimination. The government should commit to removing barriers for parents and children with disabilities to access the support, education and resources they need.”
“We need more supports for parents with disabilities. We need funding to support parents, disability violence training for workers in the Children and Young Person support system, and a navigator position within CYPS to support parents with disabilities.”
“Children with disabilities have the right to inclusive consent and sexual health education. An incoming government should fund and implement a policy package to ensure all children with disabilities have access to meaningful and affirmative sexual health and consent education.”
“The ACT Government agreed in principle to end legalisation of forced sterilisation practice in their response to the Disability Royal Commission. No person with disabilities should be sterilised without their consent – this is a breach of human rights. An incoming government should prioritise an inquiry and growing research into this area in the ACT and move towards ending these practices in all their forms.”
Kat Reed, Women with Disabilities ACT
“We must ensure that crisis service locations, including shelters and temporary housing, are accessible and appropriate for all people seeking help. People with disability often have specific needs including accessibility, specialised equipment, medication storage, and support from trained health care workers. It is critical that these needs are taken into account at crisis service locations.”
Craig Wallace, Advocacy for Inclusion
Media contact: Pippa Newman, Women with Disabilities ACT (Senior Policy Officer) on 0423740786 or secondary contact Craig Wallace (AFI Head of Policy) on 0477200755
Gender, anti-violence and families Priorities
Problem statement
People with disabilities have the right to live free from all forms of violence. They have the right to found a family, to decide on the number and spacing of their children, and to have access to appropriate education and resources to enable them to exercise these rights. However, ableism, stigma and discrimination against people with disabilities means that these rights are not upheld in the ACT.
The intersection of gendered and ableist drivers of violence leads to a higher rate of violence experienced by women* with disabilities in the ACT. They experience violence in unique ways and in different settings to people without disabilities, leading to barriers to accessing response services and limitations in current prevention strategies and policy.
Ableism, stigma and discrimination also impacts parents and children with disabilities, resulting in overrepresentation in the child protection system and barriers to accessing the support, education and resources they need.
Navigating different services including disability services, pensions, housing, NDIS, violence response services and informal parenting supports can be a challenge for people with disabilities in a complex and uncoordinated support system.
Significant investment is needed to work to prevent violence against people with disabilities, to protect the right to parent and support families, and to ensure that support services are connected, navigable and disability-informed.
Evidence
- According to the ACT Disability Strategy’s Listening report, people with disability are between 2 and 10 times more likely to experience violence compared to people without disability.
- The Disability Royal Commission Final Report found that women* with disability experience high rates of sexual assault, intimate partner, family and domestic violence, emotional abuse and stalking. The rates are higher than for men with disability or women* without disability.
- A Disability Royal Commission research report found that from the age of 15, 46% of women with cognitive disability and 50% of women with psychological disability have experienced sexual violence, compared to 16% of women without disability.
- Women* with disabilities have a unique experience of violence which can differ from a mainstream understanding of Domestic and Family Violence (DFV).
- Current strategies and policies in development in the ACT use definitions of DFV that exclude carer violence; violence in group homes, colleges, dormitories or sharehouses; violence from partners they do not live with; and institutional violence. This can lead to gaps in services, and barriers to recognising the applicability of violence response services in the ACT for women with disabilities.
- Organisations and sector workers may be unfamiliar with experiences of violence unique to women* with disabilities including withholding care, financial abuse, medical exploitation, denial of freedom of choice, chemical restraint, restraint or institutional violence. This can be a further barrier for women accessing the support they need.
- In the ACT, there is limited temporary housing and crisis shelters that meet physical accessibility requirements, and much of the existing crisis housing is old and cannot be retrofitted to be accessible.
- Women with disabilities need additional supports and considerations when accessing crisis response services and accessing the justice system, and organisations need assistance to ensure their services are accessible and inclusive. Although the Disability Justice Liaison Officer program is working well in some organisations, not all organisations have received funding for this position including key women’s sector organisations such as Women’s Legal Centre and Canberra Rape Crisis Centre.
- The Disability Royal Commission Final Report found women and girls with disabilities in Australia are subjected to reproductive violence and abuse including menstrual suppression, forced termination, non-consensual contraception or sterilisation. In the ACT there exist legislative loopholes which could allow for forced surgical sterilisation of women and girls with disabilities to occur. Additionally, the ACT is missing an evidence base to know how frequently forced abortion and forced contraception happen within the territory.
- Parents and children with disabilities are overrepresented in the child protection system and have poor access to services and to justice.
- Parents with disabilities are overrepresented as subjects of child protection allegations, are significantly more likely to have children removed from their care, and face discrimination at every stage of their interactions with the system.
- Children with disabilities are at greater risk of entering the child protection system and being removed from their families to be placed in out of home care.
- Parents with disabilities who experience domestic and family violence are put at higher risk of having their children removed and being denied custody, due to disability discrimination and ableism within the child protection system.
- Parents with intellectual disabilities have no options for formal supports in the ACT who can cater to their needs and support them as new parents.
- Finding appropriate supports for parents with disabilities can be challenging, as disability supports (e.g. NDIS) are not designed to work for families. The community sector has little capacity to connect parents with disabilities to the supports they need.
Our asks
To end gender-based violence against women, girls and non-binary people with disabilities, we ask candidates commit to the following actions and investments to prevent violence, and to ensure responses are accessible and adequately address the unique challenges people with disability face when seeking support.
- Funding for parenting supports, individual advocates and disability liaison;
- disability violence training for Child and Young Person Support workers
- A navigator position to support parents with disability.
- The Integrated Service Response Program should be enhanced for all parents with disabilities who are in a crisis situation
- A funding package for the delivery of an intersectional ACT Strategy for the Prevention of Violence against Women and Children
- Funding for a Disability Justice Liaison Officer in all community organisations that work with women with disabilities experiencing violence, prioritising gender-specialist and gender-based violence community ogranisations that do not currently include these positions
- Ensuring all children with disabilities have access to sexual health and consent education.
- Development of an accessible reporting tool and investigation into more accessible reporting procedures so people with disabilities can report violence, abuse and neglect
- Expanding accessible crisis service locations including increasing the number of physically accessible shelters and temporary housing
Election comment authorised by Kat Reed for Women with Disabilities ACT