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While humanitarian organizations are increasingly recognizing women and girls with disabilities in policies and guidelines, there are still significant gaps in operationalizing this. Their needs and capacities are often under-represented in gender, protection and disability forums. Furthermore, organizations of women with disabilities, which can play a critical role in bridging the development/humanitarian divide, are not meaningfully included in humanitarian coordination and decision-making.

This report documents findings and recommendations from a participatory action research project on disability inclusion in GBV programming in humanitarian settings, conducted with communities affected by crisis and conflict.

This toolkit was created with the input and participation of persons with disabilities, as well as GBV practitioners,
over the course of the project. It is intended to support GBV staff to build disability inclusion into their work, and
to strengthen the capacity of GBV practitioners to use a survivor-centered approach when providing services to
survivors with disabilities. The tools are designed to complement existing guidelines, protocols and tools for GBV
prevention and response, and should not be used in isolation from these. GBV practitioners are encouraged to
adapt the tools to their individual programs and contexts, and to integrate pieces into standard GBV tools and
resources.

An easy to read leaflet providing contact details for the various organisations and services that are available to victims of gender-based violence in Zambia

The purpose of these Guidelines is to assist humanitarian actors and communities affected by armed conflict, natural disasters and other humanitarian emergencies to coordinate, plan, implement, monitor and evaluate essential actions for the prevention and mitigation of gender-based violence (GBV) across all sectors of humanitarian response. Part One presents an overview of GBV, provides an explanation for why GBV is a protection concern for all humanitarian actors and outlines recommendations for ensuring implementation of the Guidelines. Part Two provides a background to the ‘thematic areas’ in Part Three. It also introduces the guiding principles and approaches that are the foundation for all planning and implementation of GBV-related programming. Part Three constitutes the bulk of these Guidelines. It provides specific guidance, organized into thirteen thematic area sections: camp coordination and camp management; child protection; education; food security and agriculture; health; housing, land and property; humanitarian mine action; livelihoods; nutrition; protection; shelter, settlement and recovery; water, sanitation and hygiene; humanitarian operations support sectors. The importance of cross-sectoral coordination is highlighted in each section. It is also recommended that sector actors review the content of all thematic area sections. The Guidelines draw from many tools, standards, background materials and other resources developed by the United Nations, national and international non-governmental organizations, and academic sources. In each thematic area there is a list of resources specific to that area, and additional GBV-related resources are provided in Annex 1. The importance of indicators being disaggregated by sex, age, disability and other vulnerability factors is highlighted throughout.

This paper explores childhood sexual abuse as understood by disabled individuals from their particular locations. The paper reports on qualitative research with disabled adults identifying themselves as survivors/victims of childhood sexual abuse. In the Indian context, Childhood sexual abuse has been understood in a monolithic way, erasing all differences that exist among children from different social locations. The paper attempts to provide an alternative perspective by focusing on the specificities of the experiences of disabled persons. The textual sources examined in the paper investigate the concept of childhood, disability and sexuality and their interconnections, both in the Western and the Indian context. Discourses that construct children as passive and ignorant make it important to provide narratives which capture strategies of resistance within power structures which constrain choices. This paper makes an attempt to document and analyze the experiences of disabled individuals who have undergone childhood sexual abuse within the larger context of Indian laws, non-governmental organisations (NGOs) which engage with the concept and reportage and which represent dominant views on Childhood sexual abuse and disabilities.

Disability and the Global South (DGS), 2015, Vol. 2 No. 2

This brief editorial published in the Lancet highlights the situation of disabled children in Africa with reference to the 2014 publication of The African Report on Children with Disabilities by The African Child Policy Forum

The Lancet, Vol 384, No. 9959

Sightsavers, HelpAge International, ADD International and Alzheimer’s Disease International worked together with the Institute of Development Studies (IDS) to bring the perspectives of those who live in poverty or who are highly marginalised into post-2015 policy making. The aim of the research was to understand better the experiences of social, political and economic exclusion of persons with disabilities and older people in Bangladesh from their own perspectives. Two groups (community and NGO) of peer researchers collected 70 stories from poor and/or excluded persons with disabilities and older people from each of the two sites: Bhashantek, an urban slum in Dhaka; and Cox’s Bazar, a rural area in southeast Bangladesh. From the stories collected and analysed in workshops, the peer researchers identified 13 priority areas that affect persons with disabilities and older people: accidents and disasters; livelihoods; access to education; medical treatment; family support; exclusion and mistreatment; superstition; access to services; mobility; marriage; land; rape and sexual abuse; the role of grassroots community-based organisations. Recommendations from the researchers are made in each area. The peer research programme was evaluated and guidelines for its use are provided.

Although there are no national data and statistics regarding violence against disabled citizens in Brazil, findings from a number of small-scale research studies suggest that it is a problem of considerable magnitude. This article draws on the existing literature on violence and oppression, empirical studies on violence against disabled people in Brazil and interviews with a sample of disabled Brazilians to argue that the most prevalent forms of violence in the nation are subtle and concealed forms of oppression that reproduce discriminatory power structures in Brazilian society. Such power structures prevent the developing world in general and Brazil in particular from securing democratic and sustainable development in the post-2015 era, when disadvantaged people must be at the center. The analysis is organized in three parts. First, I outline briefly the main issues in defining impairment, disability and violence, since these represent political choices that shape policy decisions. Second, I analyze the forms of violence that affect disabled Brazilians and the relationships and institutions that create and sustain them. Third, I describe and evaluate the government's key current strategies aimed at addressing violence against disabled Brazilians. The purpose here is to suggest ways in which violence against disabled Brazilians can be addressed in public policies as a sustainable development issue and thus help close the "gap" between disabled and nondisabled populations to create truly sustainable democratic societies that honor human dignity.

This short video highlights the situation of disabled children in Russian orphanages. In conjunction with the report by Human Rights Watch, it calls for the better treatment of disabled children in institutions and increased de-institutionalisation

This report reveals that Africa’s children are still subjected to levels of physical and emotional violence despite more than a decade of efforts by governments. The report “constitutes the most comprehensive study to date of the phenomenon in Africa and lays down the priorities for action at various levels that will be required to achieve better protection of children.  The report’s findings are principally informed by large scale surveys undertaken in Ethiopia, Kenya, Malawi, Mali, Morocco, Uganda, Zambia and Zimbabwe, and a review of more than 75 studies and reports. It reveals that a distinctive range of social, cultural and economic factors can combine to increase the risk of African children facing increased levels of physical and emotional violence in domestic settings, at schools, in institutions and in the workplace. These risks may be exacerbated in times of political upheaval and conflict, and girls are particularly vulnerable”