Triple Jeopardy Brief (English)

Cambodian women with disabilities experience multiple disadvantages resulting from the interplay between gender, disability and poverty. This participatory action research has found that women with disabilities face similar levels of sexual, physical and emotional violence by partners to non-disabled women but endure much higher levels of all forms of family violence. They suffer sexual violence perpetrated by family members at a rate five times higher than women without disabilities and are much more likely to be insulted, made to feel bad about themselves, belittled and intimidated. Few women ever seek support from NGOs for the violence they experience. These findings, building on scarce developing country evidence, highlight the unique vulnerabilities of women with disabilities to violence, and the barriers to seeking support. Training resources, guidelines and advocacy aim to improve access and assist specialist and mainstream services to address these issues more effectively.