FOCUS
Violence against children with disabilities By Lisa Jones, Mark A. Bellis, Sara Wood, Karen Hughes, Ellie McCoy, Lindsay Eckley, Geoff Bates Centre for Public Health, Liverpool John Moores University Christopher Mikton, Alana Officer, Tom Shakespeare Department of Violence and Injury Prevention and Disability, World Health Organization
Children with disabilities are three to four times more likely to be victims of violence. Children and adults with disabilities often face a wide range of physical, social and environmental barriers to full participation in society, including reduced access to health care, education and other support services. They are also thought to be at significantly greater risk of violence than their peers without disabilities. Understanding the extent of violence against children with disabilities is an essential first step in developing effective programmes to prevent them from becoming victims of violence and to improve their health and the quality of their lives. To this end, research teams at Liverpool John Moores University and the World Health Organization conducted the first systematic review, including meta-analysis, of existing studies on violence against children with disabilities (aged 18 years and under). Seventeen studies, all from high-income countries, met the criteria for inclusion in the review. Prevalence estimates of violence against children with disabilities ranged from 26.7 per cent for combined
44
THE STATE OF THE WORLD’S CHILDREN 2013: Children with Disabilities
measures of violence to 20.4 per cent for physical violence and 13.7 per cent for sexual violence. Estimates of risk indicated that children with disabilities were at a significantly greater risk of experiencing violence than peers without disabilities: 3.7 times more likely for combined measures of violence, 3.6 times more likely for physical violence and 2.9 times more likely for sexual violence. The type of disability appeared to affect the prevalence and risk of violence, although the evidence on this point was not conclusive. For instance, children with mental or intellectual disabilities were 4.6 times more likely to be victims of sexual violence than their non-disabled peers. This review demonstrated that violence is a major problem for children with disabilities. It also highlighted the absence of high-quality studies on the topic from low- and middle-income countries, which generally have higher population rates of disability, higher levels of violence and fewer support services for those living with a disability. This gap in the research urgently needs to be filled. A number of explanations have been put forward to account