People with disabilities are particularly at risk

A carer forgets a senior citizen in the toilet for 50 minutes.
A resident of a care home falls out of an open window; due to his disability, he was unable to recognize the danger.
A carer offers care home residents “special shower experiences”.
Three examples that show: People with disabilities who live in a specialized institution have a particularly high risk of becoming victims of violence.

This is also the conclusion of a Federal Council report from 2023.
However, the risk is not only high in institutions.
People who need help to cope with everyday life or who have limited judgment are exposed to the same risk everywhere, including at home.
Children, women and elderly people with disabilities are particularly at risk.
However, these risk factors do not only affect the likelihood of experiencing violence.
They also influence the ability to recognize it, to defend oneself against it, to seek help and to accept it.

Accountability required
With the report, the Federal Council responded to demands from the National Council and Council of States to investigate the extent of violence against people with disabilities.
At the same time, accountability was demanded as to whether the Istanbul Convention on Protection against Violence against Women and Domestic Violence is implemented without discrimination and whether barrier-free access to victim support centers is guaranteed.
Switzerland committed to this by signing the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities in 2014 and ratifying the Istanbul Convention in 2017.

What does disability mean?
There is no standard definition of disability.
However, a social approach, as used in the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, is widely used.
According to this, disability is understood as the result of an interaction between impairments (physical, mental, cognitive or sensory) and the barriers of the environment.
As a result, people are prevented from participating fully and equally in social life.

No reliable data
The report reveals a great need for action.
There is no reliable data on the extent of violence against people with disabilities in Switzerland.
To date, for example, there is no study that records the experiences of victims in the population, although specialist agencies and disability organizations have been calling for this for a long time.
Studies from neighboring countries show that the problem must be taken seriously.
According to these studies, women and men with disabilities are affected by physical, psychological and sexual violence at an above-average rate.

Advice and protection: insufficient
The study also shows that the existing advice and protection services for people with disabilities affected by violence are not sufficiently accessible.
Many of the services are too little known or buildings and information are not accessible without barriers.
In particular, women and men with disabilities who live or work in institutions only have limited access to independent support services.

The exchange between the protection against violence and disability services should also be improved.
If violence occurs, emergency shelters, emergency centers or other special facilities for people with disabilities are not accessible or only accessible with difficulty, the report criticizes.
In addition, the employees of these agencies hardly feel responsible for people with disabilities affected by violence.

What needs to be done
The report formulates a series of measures and recommendations to better protect people with disabilities from violence.

• The disability perspective should be integrated into federal statistics on violence.
  Research and knowledge transfer on violence against people with disabilities should be promoted.
• People with disabilities should be systematically taken into account in violence prevention programs.
• The cantons should ensure that counseling and protection services for victims of violence are also accessible to people with disabilities.
  The necessary resources must be made available for structural adaptations, barrier-free information formats and technical bases.
• The cantons should better coordinate guidelines, protection concepts and other instruments for protection against violence in institutions for the disabled.
• The cantons should oblige institutions to set up internal reporting offices.
  External contact and complaints offices are also required in all cantons.
  They enable people affected by violence to contact an office outside their own institution if necessary.

Concrete implementation required
Disability organizations and associations of institutions for people with disabilities have supported the drafting of the report. However, they criticize the fact that the recommendations are not binding enough.
And they are calling on the federal government to draw up a concrete plan on how the proposed measures are to be implemented.