Equality and Human Rights Commission

Article 16 says:

Governments must do everything they can to:

• protect disabled people from all forms of exploitation, violence and abuse at home and in the community
• prevent all forms of violence and abuse against disabled people
• ensure disabled people know how to recognise and report violence and abuse.Governments must support the recovery of disabled people who have been victims of violence and abuse. This should be done in a way that supports people to regain control over their lives
• put in place strong laws to make sure instances of violence and abuse against disabled people are identified, investigated and prosecuted.

What does this mean?

This Article sets out detailed steps of how to prevent or address exploitation, violence and abuse.

In Britain, nearly all forms of exploitation, violence and abuse count as crimes. Disabled people are four times more likely to be the victim of a crime than other people and are twice as likely to be the victim of a violent attack. Any crime involving disability hostility or prejudice should be treated as a hate crime and attract a stiffer sentence.

Britain has disability hate crime legislation (separately for England, Wales and Scotland), but the Equality Duty also places a responsibility on public authorities under the Equality Act to take action to address the behaviour and attitudes of those who carry out hate crime, as well as take steps so that disabled people can live in safety and security.

For example, the police should make sure that disabled people can report hate crime incidents, for example by making police stations accessible, training police officers, and raising awareness among disabled people of their rights.

Article 16 says that there needs to be independent monitoring of facilities and programmes for disabled people. In Britain this role is usually carried out by inspectorates and regulators, for example Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary.

Abuse can also happen in other places like schools. You could use this Article to highlight the need to monitor the effectiveness of safeguarding systems in education for disabled children and disabled teachers.