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Research has consistently shown that people with disabilities are more at risk of being a victim of violence than people without disabilities (Conroy and Cotter 2017; Cotter 2018; Cotter and Savage 2019; Harpur and Douglas 2014; Olofsson et al. 2015; Perreault 2015; Perreault 2020a; Platt et al. 2017). Recognizing that approximately 6.2 million Canadians-or 22% of Canadians aged 15 years and older-have one or more disabilities (Canadian Survey on Disability 2017), monitoring their experiences of violence is critical to developing policies that accurately reflect Canada's population.
One type of violence is intimate partner violence (IPV); that is, violence perpetrated against a person by their current or former legally married spouse, common-law partner, or dating partner. IPV is a serious public health concern that encompasses a broad range of behaviours including emotional, psychological, financial, physical and sexual abuse, and has profound immediate and long-term impacts on survivors and victims (World Health Organization 2017).1 Although both women and men experience IPV, research to date has found that women experience the most severe forms of intimate partner violence (Burczycka 2019; Conroy 2021). Furthermore, homicide data have consistently shown that women victims of homicide in Canada are more likely to be killed by an intimate partner than by any other type of perpetrator, whereas men are more likely to be killed by someone other than an intimate partner (Roy and Marcellus 2019). Having a disability may increase some women's vulnerability to intimate partner violence. For example, women with disabilities may experience an increased risk of isolation or an increased reliance on an intimate partner. The Canadian Survey on Disability (2017) found that women are consistently more likely to have a disability than men, regardless of age (Morris et al. 2018).
Using self-reported data from the 2018 Survey of Safety in Public and Private Spaces (SSPPS), this report builds on previous findings of IPV with a specific focus on the experiences of women with disabilities. Where possible, analysis will be conducted on the co-occurrence of disability across four categories: sensory (hearing or visual); physical (flexibility, mobility, dexterity, pain); cognitive (developmental, learning, memory); and mental health-related disability.2 This report explores the prevalence, nature, and impact of IPV on Canadians, taking into account experiences of IPV in one's lifetime (since age 15),...