“Now I feel super strong, I have risen from the ashes”, the speaker is a woman we will call Teresa because she wants to remain anonymous. She lives alone, she is 45 years old and has a 78% physical disability that forces her to use a wheelchair. She gives her testimony to La Vanguardia to denounce that women with disabilities, in addition to the ableism in which they live immersed, also suffer sexist violence. In her case, she in the sphere of the couple.

Women with disabilities have four times the risk of being victims of gender violence compared to the rest of the female population, according to a study by the European Parliament. In fact, 73% of women with disabilities have been exposed at some time in their lives to situations of abuse and violence, according to a recent report by Cermi.

Teresa speaks with some difficulty, although she makes herself understood. She gets around on a chair, but she is able to hold on and move around the house without using it. She has diplopia—also known as double vision—and her glasses are her best friend. In addition, she suffers from hemiparesis, that is, she has difficulty moving on the left side of her body.

A decade ago Teresa acquired the disability caused by a brain operation, after three strokes in a period of two years. “It is a very difficult duel, but you rise again, and as soon as you do, you run into a society that treats you as if you were an asshole.” And she adds: “People don’t think they can live alone.”

The process was not easy. Teresa acquired permanent disability at the age of 35 and her voice, she says, has been worth less since then. She was bedridden for a long time and spent practically three years without leaving the house. At that time, her support was her partner, as well as her family. She “told him to leave me, that I was no longer worth anything.” But he decided to stay.

“Some women with congenital disabilities have socialized from exclusion and consider themselves a burden,” says Isabel Caballero, coordinator of Cermi Mujeres. This perception has to do with the very situation of disability that leads to a self-concept of undermined self-esteem because they have not received training aimed at empowerment or the detection of violence.

The sentimental relationship went through several stages until, in recent years, the violence escalated without her being aware. “There were days that he became cruel. He put me down, made me feel small, and talked down to me.” To these behaviors, she says that she also suffered gaslighting, a type of abuse in which the aggressor makes the victim question her own reality.

Women with disabilities are at greater risk of suffering sexist violence due, among other things, to their vulnerability and social invisibility. “Many times women with disabilities have not even been identified as women and this leads to an erroneous idea that we have a shield against violence,” says Ángeles Blanco, legal advisor for Cermi Mujeres.

In addition, the idea that they cannot have a partner is very established. “There is in the social imaginary that the man who is with a woman with a disability is a good man, who sacrifices a part of his life to be with a non-normative woman,” reflects Isabel Caballero. In this line, Teresa tells how the friends of her ex told her: “Above all, you take care of her, protest.” For society that “our male partners are heroes just for living with us.”

Teresa remembers one day when she was about to fall asleep and she surprised her when she got to bed. “She insisted on me to have sex. I told him ‘I don’t want to’ several times until I got angry, got up and went to the bathroom.” She locked herself in the sink, grabbed a yoga mat, and lay down on it to try to sleep. “The next day, she seemed like she took the blame for her, but she then called me ‘overreacting,’ and she told me that she had made me too feminist.”

The prevalence of sexual violence in women with disabilities is high. Cermi’s study on gender violence reveals alarming data: 38.8% of women with disabilities have been raped by their partners.

At first, I felt that, perhaps, it was an “exaggeration”. When talking about it with a friend, she realized that she was being a victim of gender violence. Something that over time her psychologist finished confirming. Due to a health problem, Teresa decided to put an end to her relationship, and she began looking for a flat. “I couldn’t find anything for myself. The bathtubs were not accessible, the chair did not fit in the elevator, there were no ramps in the doorways…”. She acknowledges that owning another apartment, together with her ex, was the only alternative left to her.

Teresa confesses that she is “privileged” both for having a housing resource and for having a family and social environment that believes and supports her. Unfortunately, most of the time she is not like that. The risk of poverty or social exclusion is very high. “It is a factor that acts not only as a trigger for violence, but above all prevents women from being able to get out of these circumstances or find more obstacles,” Ángeles Blanco remarks.

This lawyer deals daily with victims and her priority is the social approach. “However, most shelters are not adapted, not only at the level of accessibility, but also due to a lack of specific personal assistance,” she denounces.

The process of violence impacts the lives of women at a psychological and physical level. Many are in a situation of vulnerability and without support. “Once we make the social approach to the victim, we take care of her mental well-being. From an ethical point of view, we cannot start with the judicial sphere until the woman has carried out an analysis of expectations and guarantees, and makes a free decision in this regard”.

Once the woman decides to start the complaint process, she comes across a legal system that is not only “hostile” and “capable”, but also not “accessible”. “The possibility that her testimony will be questioned throughout the procedure is very high,” says Blanco, who assures that depending on the type of disability it increases even more. “In intellectual disability, she can come to extract that if she does not understand well how she is going to be able to express what happens to her,” she details.

The lack of accessibility is another factor that discourages reporting. “There are women who cannot verbalize what is happening to them because they do not have orality. We still do not have specialists who can collect these testimonies by alternative means”, exemplifies Isabel Caballero.

Ángeles Blanco denounces that “there is no recognition in the procedural laws” of alternative communication systems in court. This implies that each judge assesses whether or not these systems are allowed for the victim to appear. In fact, in Law 8/2021, which reforms civil and procedural legislation to support people with disabilities, there is no “express mention” of alternative or augmentative communication in the courts. Although Law 6/2022, which regulates cognitive accessibility and includes alternative and augmentative communication, was approved last year, the reality is that they continue to “face this problem.”

“Not all of us communicate in the same way, nor can we pick up a phone to report, nor can we get to a court if the places are not accessible,” summarizes Caballero. Along these lines, the Cermi coordinator advocates carrying out prevention campaigns that challenge these women and communication with a gender perspective adapted to all types of disabilities.

Gender violence can have serious physical and psychological consequences. In fact, almost one in five victims (17.5%) has acquired a disability as a result of the violence suffered, according to the Macro-survey on Violence against Women. Teresa, specifically, suffers from post-traumatic stress and has had panic attacks since she suffered sexist violence. “Sometimes I’m in the supermarket and I start to tremble as soon as there is something that reminds me of what I’ve been through.”

He confesses that he feels good and is happy with the life he has now. In addition, she claims to have a relationship of “maximum and mutual respect” with her ex-partner, who says she has realized the damage she has inflicted on him. “In fact, the first thing she lets me know is that she doesn’t want to come back to me and that she just wants to make amends.”