Violence against Women with Disabilities: A Qualitative Investigation

Abstract

Many of the research studies have shown that usually people with disabilities and specifically women with disabilities are at increased risk of physical, sexual, and emotional abuse as well as to other practices of violence, such as institutional violence, drug use, undesirable sterilisation, medical abuse, mortification,and nuisance. This study is intended to explore the lived experiences of women with disabilities who have been subjected to any type of violence, generate a theoretical model for the ways in which women with disabilities survived and coped with their violence and finally to make suggestions and recommendationsin order to reduce the elements causing violence against women with disabilities. In this study, a qualitative interpretive phenomenological research methodology has been used to explore, interpret, and evaluate the personal narratives of women with disabilities about their experiences with violence and abuse. The phenomenology approach was used to study the phenomena. A number of 05 women with disabilities who had physical disability or sensory impairment (visual and hearing) were purposively selected as the participants of the study. The age of participants was between 25 to 40 years and they had past experience of any type of abuse of violence, and were cognitively normal to respond interview. At first we identified the participants with the help of survey. A series of detailed and in- depth interview of 60 to 90 minutes were conducted from the participants. On the basis of collected data the researchers have given textural description and a structural description of the experiences, and ultimately provide understanding of the common experience of the participants. Finally from the structural and textural description, the researchers wrote a composite description that to present the essence of the phenomena.