Who harms disabled people? Disabled people experience violence and harm from close family, friends, intimate partners and wider family, as any person can, but also from professionals and other people providing support in residential, community and civil society settings. For example: physical injuries resulting in impairment including blindness, hearing impairment and impaired mobility • physical illnesses that can result in physical impairment • brain injury and neurological disorders causing short and long-term impairment • in residential and organisational settings abuse can be perpetrated by staff including health and welfare professionals, or other people who use services • self-harming behaviours such as alcohol and substance abuse, eating disorders, sexual promiscuity and lack of self-care that can result in physical and mental impairment • in educational settings by teachers and others such as care-takers and drivers • • in home-based environments by property owners care-givers,60 health and welfare professionals and the person’s partner and wider family and friends mental distress, particularly depression, anxiety and post-traumatic stress disorder, all of which can seriously impair people’s functioning. • in community settings by strangers, employers, neighbours, people in faith communities, in cultural groups, in the street, in businesses and people in other civic environments.61 Family can be a source of harm The first Aotearoa family violence prevalence study to include disability status† for people living in their own homes, reports that, for disabled women, the main perpetrators of non-partner physical violence were parents and relatives (59.7%), whereas for disabled men, strangers were the main perpetrators (59.3%).62 Violence is disabling, it creates and worsens barriers to participation Any person who is abused can be physically or emotionally damaged by the abuse63 and existing impairments can be exacerbated through:64 † 28 • Both deliberate and unintentional neglect and abuse can cause chronic illness and loss of mental and physical functioning, resulting in long-term impairment.65 New local research66 has identified that across the population, women (18–64 years) who had experienced severe physical violence were: • three times more likely to have suicidal thoughts • eight times more likely to attempt suicide compared to women who had not experienced violence • almost four times more likely to report current symptoms of emotional distress and suicidal thoughts. People who access treatment in the mental health system may be subject to institutional abuse such as forced treatment, the use of seclusion and restraint, and have inadequate access to justice to challenge these abuses.67 People with learning disability also experience these institutional abuses, including indefinite detention.68 The 2019 New Zealand Family Violence Study/He Koiora Matapopore interviewed almost 3,000 people between 2017 and early 2019. The sample is generally representative of the New Zealand population, and included people aged 16 years and older (with slightly more older people), was equally split between males and females, and comparable to the ethnic distribution of the population. Of these, 21% (1 in 5) women and about 15.1% (1 in 7) men reported having a disability. Participants self-identified as disabled using the Washington Group Short Set of questions from 2015. People were interviewed in their own homes. Researchers did not talk to people living in residential services, retirement homes or who required support to communicate with the researchers. Human Rights Commission