This poster is in CBM’s brand and shows the CBM logo.
It reads:
Women with disabilities are:
- 2 – 3 times more likely to experience violence and sexual abuse than women without disabilities
- Less likely to disclose incidents of sexual violence and abuse
Across Gender Based Violence (GBV) and Sexual and Reproductive Health Rights (SRHR interventions, women and girls with disabilities face systemic barriers.
- GBV prevention, safeguarding and reporting services that are not accessible, including inaccessible buildings, no accessible transport, and no sign language interpreters or other communication supports
- Health and SRHR services that assume women with disabilities are asexual or incapable of decision‑making
- Information on maternal health, contraception, and other SRHR information provided in inaccessible formats
- Limited or inaccessible engagement with women with disabilities in policy design and service delivery
These gaps allow violence, coercion and rights violations to persist – not through individual vulnerability, but through institutional design failures
‘We know that the women’s organisation has support services [but] … the care centre says, ‘that it is too difficult for them to be equally treated.’’- OPD representative, Laos
“You say ‘accessible hospitals’ people might think of ramps but…if you go to the hospital in labour there is no labour bed suitable for women with disabilities and the doctors aren’t sensitised.” — OPD leader, Nepal
“I didn’t know where I can go to because people … don’t understand sign language.” – Women with disability, Cameroon
Exclusion is systemic so inclusion must be too.
CBM Australia supports GBV prevention and response and access to SRHR for women with disabilities by:
- Raising awareness around disability rights, women’s rights and SRHR through training and support to self-help groups, OPDs, community workers, women’s groups, schools and members of the judicial system
- Supporting women with disabilities to shape programs, policies and accountability mechanisms
- Addressing stigma by shifting harmful assumptions around gender, violence and disability
- Working with mainstream health to improve inclusion of women with disabilities, alongside other OPDs
- Driving research to identify drivers of inequity and how these can be addressed
- Promoting economic independence of women with disabilities through livelihood programming