In The Politics of Autism, I write:
People with disabilities are victims of violent crime three times as often as people without disabilities. The Bureau of Justice Statistics does not report separately on autistic victims, but it does note that the victimization rate is especially high among those whose disabilities are cognitive. A small-sample study of Americans and Canadians found that adults with autism face a greater risk of sexual victimization than their peers. Autistic respondents were more than twice as likely to say that had been the victim of rape and over three times as likely to report unwanted sexual contact.
Children who are deaf, blind, or autistic, have psychosocial and intellectual disabilities, or have multiple impairments are most vulnerable to all forms of violence. Studies have found that children with intellectual disabilities are five times more likely to be subjected to abuse than other children are and are far more vulnerable to bullying.
Jones, L., Bellis, M., Wood, S., Hughes, K. McCoy, E., Eckley, L., & Bates, G. (2013). The State of the World’s Children 2013, Children with Disabilities. Essays. Focus: Violence against Children with Disabilities. Retrieved from https://www.unicef.org/sowc2013/focus_violence.html; Lisa Jones, et al. (2012). Prevalence and Risk of Violence against Children with Disabilities: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis of Observational Studies, The Lancet 380, 899–907; United Nations (2017). Report of the Special Rapporteur on the rights of persons with disabilities, Sexual and reproductive health and rights of girls and young women with disabilities, A/72/133; Meer, T. & Combrinck, H. (2015). Invisible Intersections: Understanding the complex stigmatisation of women with intellectual disabilities in their vulnerability to gender-based violence, Agenda 29(2), 14- 23; Braathen, A., Rohleder, P. & Azalde, G. (2017). Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights of Girls with Disabilities: A review of the literature. 18-19. 66 Jones, L., Bellis, M., Wood, S., Hughes, K. McCoy, E., Eckley, L., & Bates, G. (2013). The State of the World’s Children 2013, Children with Disabilities. Essays. Focus: Violence against Children with Disabilities. Retrieved from https://www.unicef.org/sowc2013/focus_violence.html; Spencer, N., Devereux, E., Wallace, A., Sundrum, R., Shenoy, M., Bacchus, C. & Logan, S. (2005). Disabling conditions and registration for child abuse and neglect: a population based study, Paediatrics 116: 609–613; and Sweden, The Swedish National Institute of Public Health (Folkhälsoinstitutet) (2012). Health and Welfare of children and young people with disabilities (Hälsa och välfärd hos barn och unga med funktionsnedsättning). 39 and 50; as cited in European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights (2015). Violence against children with disabilities: legislation, policies and programmes in the EU. Retrieved from http://fra.europa.eu/en/ publication/2015/children-disabilities-violence.
