State of the World's Children 2013 - Unicef

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
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
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THE STATE OF THE WORLD’S CHILDREN 2013: Children with Disabilities