PAST projects

Key Findings:

• For every level of schooling, and every type of violence, students with disabilities are at least as and usually far more likely than their non-disabled peers to be victims of school violence and bullying.

• Students with disabilities are more likely to report that avoidance responses such as walking away and support-seeking behavior, including telling an adult, were ineffective at reducing violence or bullying.

• Both girls and boys with disabilities are more likely than their nondisabled, same-sex peers to be affected by sexual violence.

• A prior history of victimization is one of the most significant predictors of future bullying victimization for learners with disabilities at all levels of schooling.

• Learners with disabilities are less vulnerable to bullying in schools where teachers actively promote positive peer interactions and promptly intervene to stop bullying.

• Adopting curricula that are inclusive of persons with disabilities of all types, recruiting and promoting teachers and school staff with disabilities, and incorporating transformative teaching materials that challenge social norms and promote social emotional learning can be effective tools to reduce violence.

• Creating age, gender, and disability sensitive mechanisms that allow learners with disabilities to report negative experiences at school and training teachers, school staff and social service providers about the rights and needs of students with disabilities can reduce stigma and prevent bullying.

Key Findings:

• The freedom to make decisions for themselves about all aspects of their lives is essential to the right of young persons with disabilities to fully participate in social, economic, and political life.  Young persons with disabilities are too often denied agency by stigma and prejudice, discriminatory laws, and physical barriers and inattention to the rights of young persons with disabilities to access public spaces and information. 

• Young persons with disabilities are vulnerable to discrimination based on their age, their gender, and their disability, among other factors. Multiple forms of discrimination intersect and compound existing disadvantages, increasing the vulnerability of young persons with disabilities to being denied human rights. 

• Young persons with disabilities, especially young women and girls with disabilities, are more vulnerable to violence than are their peers without disabilities. They face different forms of violence, including physical, sexual, psychological, and emotional abuse; bullying, coercion, institutionalization, trafficking, and forced sterilization; and beliefs and practices not conducive to human rights such as child marriage and female genital mutilation. 

• Young persons with disabilities, especially young women and girls with disabilities, are often denied access to justice and response services for survivors of sexual violence and GBV. 

• The difficulties faced by young persons with disabilities in accessing their rights are compounded by poverty, risks associated with conflict settings and humanitarian crises, and institutionalization. 

• The collection of data that is disaggregated by disability, sex, and age is critical to understand the situation of young persons with disabilities and to inform policies that will ensure these young persons’ social inclusion and human rights.
  
• States should pursue a twin-track approach to ensuring that the needs and interests of young persons with disabilities are met by mainstreaming young persons with disabilities into all laws, policies, and programs relating to promoting gender equality and by preventing and responding to GBV while also developing, where appropriate, targeted programs addressing the risks that young persons with disabilities face in terms of violence and eradicating barriers to multisectoral services.
   
• A coordinated, rights-based, and victim-centered approach to the prevention and response to violence is essential and requires effective communication and participation among stakeholders. Core elements of such an approach include comprehensive legal frameworks, governance, oversight and accountability, resources and financing, training and workforce development, monitoring and evaluation, and gender-sensitive policies and practices. Such policies should address discrimination at all levels of government and across all sectors, including health, education, policing and justice, and economic policies.
   
• All GBV prevention and response programs and policies should be youth friendly and disability inclusive to ensure they are available, accessible, affordable, and of appropriate quality for young persons with disabilities. 

• All CSOs need to become more responsive to women and adolescent girls with disabilities. Disabled persons’ organizations need to become more gender responsive, including ensuring that women are represented within the senior leadership. Women’s rights organizations  also need to ensure equal access to participation and leadership positions for women and girls with disabilities.