The magnitude of violence towards disabled people in Aotearoa: higher risks Disabled adults The 2019 New Zealand Family Violence Study78 reports more disabled people experiencing non-partner physical and sexual violence than non-disabled people. • For women, 15.4% of those with impairments experienced lifetime nonpartner physical violence, and 11.1% experienced lifetime non-partner sexual violence. • For disabled men, 56.2% experienced lifetime non-partner physical violence, and 5.6% experienced lifetime non-partner sexual violence. • Women and men with psychosocial impairments reported the highest prevalence rates of non-partner physical and sexual violence. • Of the disabled people who reported nonpartner sexual violence, 43.5% of women and 60% of men never sought help. Disabled people in this survey also reported experiencing more intimate partner violence than non-disabled people, including physical violence, psychological abuse and economic abuse. Disabled women were more likely to experience sexual violence by intimate partners than disabled men. Controlling behaviours were experienced by 31.7% of women and 24.7% of men and economic abuse was experienced by 24.7% of women and 19.8% of men.79 The New Zealand Crime and Victimisation Survey (2021, NZCVS) reports that when age differences are taken into account: 30 • 16% of disabled people experienced interpersonal violence compared to 7% of non-disabled people. • disabled adults are about 52% more likely than non-disabled adults to be sexually assaulted in their lifetime. • “the risk of interpersonal violence for adults with disability is twice as high as the New Zealand average, after accounting for age differences.”80 Human Rights Commission These two studies surveyed different populations and asked different questions, so the results and populations surveyed are not directly comparable. For example, the interpersonal violence reported in the NZCVS, “includes… sexual assault; other assault; robbery; harassment and threatening behaviour; and household and personal property damage where the offender is known to the victim”.81 This is a different definition from that used in the New Zealand Family Violence Study. What these studies tell us, however, is the prevalence of violence against disabled people is significantly higher than the rate of violence against non-disabled people. Although both studies gather both ethnicity and disability data neither of them disaggregate or report results by ethnicity and disability. Tāngata whaikaha Māori There is no research specifically about the abuse of tāngata whaikaha Māori. King (2019), extrapolating from government data collection, says that tāngata whaikaha Māori are more likely than non-disabled Māori to experience violent crime (8% vs 3%).82 The Abuse in Care Royal Commission (2020) reports: Available data suggest that a disproportionate number of Māori have also been in both disability and mental health facilities…Māori have higher proportions of disability compared with others in all age groups. Māori have also been consistently overrepresented in admissions to psychiatric institutions since the 1970s. Reports in the 1990s show Māori were not only more likely to be receiving mental health care, but also more likely to be in secure care and subject to compulsory treatment orders.83