Overcoming disabling barriers to justice and support after sexual violence (online event)
Join this event discussing research on the experiences of disabled victims of sexual violence, highlighting challenges and proposing improvements for support services and the justice system.
Main Details
The Centre for Disability Studies invites you to an online Conversation Series event with Dr Andrea Hollomotz, Dr Leah Burch and Ruth Bashall:“Overcoming disabling barriers to justice and support after sexual violence”.
Date: Thursday 13th July 2023
Time: 15:00 – 16:30 (GMT+1)
Location: Online via Zoom
Event Description
Disabled people are almost twice as likely to experience sexual violence compared to non-Disabled people, but proportionally their take-up of victim support services and engagement with the justice process is much lower. The Ministry of Justice commissioned this research to work with Disabled victim-survivors and find out how this can be changed.
We conducted qualitative interviews and focus groups with 39 Disabled rape victim-survivors from England and Wales. They described their journeys from realising they had experienced sexual violence, to reporting to the police (or reasons for not reporting), to accessing Victim Support services (or not). Survival journeys were not linear. Almost all had been let down by services, many more than once, due to a lack of disability awareness and intersecting forms of multiple oppression and discrimination. However, our victim-survivors also shared some excellent examples of best practice.
We highlight how the personal can become political when Disabled victim-survivors move from experiencing personal struggles, such as feeling like they do not belong in a victim support service, towards a sociological understanding of disablism and oppression, such as identifying incidents when reasonable accommodations had not been made. We conclude with concrete suggestions for increasing the accessibility of victim support services and the criminal justice system.
Presenters:
• Dr Andrea Hollomotz, University of Leeds
• Dr Leah Burch, Liverpool Hope University, University of Leeds
• Ruth Bashall, Stay Safe East
Presenter biographies can be found on the Eventbrite page.
Social Media Tags
@LeahFBurch @StaySafeEast
Accessibility Information
The event will be held on Zoom with auto-generated captioning. If you have any access requirements that we need to be made aware of, please email M.Griffiths1@leeds.ac.uk