Making Violence Prevention Programs Work for Women with Disabilities

A picture of three African women occupies the top third of the page. One of the women is smiling with the arm of another woman around her shoulders. They are standing in front of a hut made from mud and sticks. The rest of the cover presents the title in white text on a light green background.

Women and girls with disabilities are frequently at high risk for gender-based violence including domestic violence, sexual assault, rape, and coerced abortion and sterilization. Some programs have been successful in preventing, eliminating, and responding to violence, exploitation, and abuse against women and girls with disabilities.

The publication, Making it Work initiative on gender and disability inclusion: Advancing equity for women and girls with disabilities, describes 11 successful anti-violence programs from 10 different countries and explains some of the reasons why they were successful. Key women with disability leaders from around the world comprised a Technical Advisory Committee that reviewed about 30 proposed programs to select the 11 programs to be reviewed in the publication. All initiatives included in the publication were led by women with disabilities and, in the judgment of the committee members, may be a good model for other programs to emulate.

Some of the programs focused on advocacy and policy change, some on raising awareness about violence against women with disabilities, and some on empowering women with disabilities. The programs described in the manual include one program in Guatemala, one in Mexico, and two in Kenya, as well as programs in Fiji, Colombia, Costa Rica, Uruguay, Israel, Canada, and Burundi.

This publication was produced by Handicapped International, 2015.