In August 2020, WWDA made a submission to the House Standing Committee on Social Policy and Legal Affairs Inquiry into Family, Domestic and Sexual Violence.
It is now well known that compared to our peers, women and girls with disability experience significantly higher levels of all forms of violence, more intensely and frequently. Our experiences of violence last longer1; more severe injuries result; we are far less likely to receive service support to address violence; we are often not believed when reporting sexual assault and other forms of violence; we are often denied the right to legal capacity and effective access to justice; and we have considerably fewer pathways to safety.
This submission has been developed to provide the Commonwealth with key areas for consideration in the development of a new National Plan to Reduce Violence Against Women and their Children, post 2022.