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>>Tim Kaine: Hello.
I'm Tim Kaine, and I'm going to talk about something
that may be considered uncomfortable
and is rarely openly addressed: Domestic violence
and *** assault of women with disabilities.
These are disturbing issues, but for women with disabilities,
they are even more devastating and the statistics are shocking.
These women are between 4 and 10 times as likely
to become victims of these appalling crimes
and it is estimated that over half of women
with disabilities will experience physical,
*** or emotional abuse at some point in their lives.
It is critical that professionals
in the criminal justice system understand the best methods
to ensure that these victims receive equal justice.
Like all citizens, they have the right to protection
under the law, but just getting access
to the criminal justice system can pose a barrier
for a person with a disability.
The Americans with Disabilities Act has brought some
improvements in physical access to justice, but, sadly,
the toughest obstacles can be attitudes based on assumptions
and stereotypes about people with disabilities.
Cases of domestic violence
and *** assault present challenges
for even the most seasoned criminal justice professional.
Equally complicated is understanding the wide spectrum
of disabilities and the challenges their victims face.
This DVD was funded the United States Department of Justice
to increase understanding of the needs faced by women
with disabilities who are at risk everyday.
We will discover that the term
"disability" covers a broad spectrum,
including invisible disabilities such as mental illness,
brain injury, and post traumatic stress disorder.
We will also see how abuse of women
with disabilities typically differs
from other kinds of domestic violence.
Finally, we will gain insight into these women's daily risk
of becoming victims of crime.
Please join me in my effort to bring justice to all citizens
of Virginia, including those with disabilities.
>>Narrator: We think of home as a sanctuary
from the stress of everyday life.
But for victims of domestic violence or *** assault,
home is no safe haven.
For those with disabilities, whether they live
in an institutional setting or with a family,
behind the closed door of a home may be the atmosphere
of fear and dread.
>>Dr. Elizabeth Cramer: What we know for women
with disabilities is that the rate of ***
and emotional abuse is higher than for
that of women without disabilities.
We also know for women with disabilities
that the abuse lasts for a longer duration,
that they are more often abused by health care workers
and personal care attendants, and that they have fewer options
for escaping the abuse.
>>Narrator: The lifetime prevalence of physical,
*** and emotional abuse of people with disabilities is 62%.
In recent years, our law makers have made great strides
in recognizing and protecting people from domestic violence.
But reaching out for help is never easy, and for those
with disabilities there are great physical
and psychological barriers to overcome.
Loretta is partially-sighted and, like many women
with disabilities, depends upon her husband
to provide help everyday.
>>Loretta: I have a long history of abuse
in my marriage it started shortly
after I had our first child, my son.
His physical abuse would be striking me in my face, pushing,
shoving, and the first time he did it it was very frightening
for me and I didn't know how to handle it,
so I never told anyone that I was being abused at home.
I never shared that with anyone.
I didn't know how to handle it actually, so I just kept quiet
>>Dr. Cramer: There is a range
of physical assaults including slapping, kicking,
throwing objects at somebody, and there are all kinds
of *** molestation that both groups experience,
however we know from the research, including the research
that I've done across Virginia is that women
with disabilities experience unique forms of abuse as well.
Perpetrators often target the disabilities that the women have
in order to demean, discredit or devalue the women.
>>Loretta: He used my disability not being able to drive,
and move around, get around on my own.
There was a time even after my son started driving
that he took all the keys to the vehicles
and my son nor I could move around.
Sometimes my husband is not sensitive to my disability
as far as moving furniture,
having things placed in my pathway.
I don't know if he intentionally puts them there to hurt me
but he doesn't seem to care if they're there or if I stumble
and hurt myself because they're there.
>>Narrator: Some disabilities can be hard to identify
and often go undiagnosed.
Many mental disabilities can themselves be the result
of a life-time of abuse.
>>Dr. Cramer: Some of these women have experienced abuse
from childhood on and so they have post traumatic stress
disorder that's accumulated and some of them haven' t been
in treatment to attend to that post traumatic stress
or that depression.
>>Narrator: Gail was raised in a family with a history
of domestic violence, and at 16 married a man
who became abusive.
A lifetime of mistreatment left her
with post traumatic stress disorder, or PTSD.
>>Gail: My disability, the main disability
which is the Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome is unseen unless
something triggers a problem and then it's very apparent
but for most part it's unseen.
The most frightening thing
for me regarding the disorder was loss of time I went
through days with loss of time, and that's scary
when you have two children
because you're wondering was I hit in the head too many times,
did he do something to cause a brain injury,
did my father do something to cause a brain injury?
Am I going crazy?
I don't remember what happened yesterday, you know,
did I take care of my kids yesterday?
Well they look fine so I must have, and not being able
to relate that particular symptom without the fear
of having your kids taken away.
>>Dr. Cramer: Women with disabilities are also
at increased risk of being abused because they are taught
to comply with the demands and wishes of other people.
This is called trained compliance.
A woman learns early on that in order to get her needs met,
she needs to do what others ask of her to do.
>>Narrator: Fatalities
and injuries are the worst case scenario,
but domestic violence does not have to be physical in nature
to be a serious problem.
The Power and Control Wheel demonstrates the pattern
of abusive behaviors used by a perpetrator to maintain power
and control over a victim.
>>Dr. Cramer: Some non disabled men set out to choose women
with disabilities for their partners
because they perceive these women
as being more needy, more dependent.
>>Abusers want to control their victims and they do not need
to commit a crime to do so.
>>Dr. Cramer: It might be very cruel
to disable somebody's wheelchair but that might not be a crime
under our family violence statutes.
It might be particularly loathsome
to not give somebody a drink of water whose not able
to get them...get it themselves but it might not be a crime
under our family violence statutes.
>>Gail: My husband went so far as to monitor everywhere I went,
he would watch the mileage on the car and the gas...
look at grocery receipts...
that type of thing, and he monitored every detail
of my life & where I went, who I was around.
>>Narrator: When we think of people with disabilities,
we often conjure up stereotypical images.
But the word disability covers a wide range of visible
or hidden conditions which can strike at any point in life.
>>Dr. Cramer: Some women are abused
after they've already have had a disability
with which they were born or it might be a disability
that they acquired such as a spinal cord injury
from a diving accident.
>>Narrator: When Helen got married as a young,
able-bodied woman, she had no idea that her dream
of a happy marriage was about to be shattered.
>>Helen: I was married for 23 years.
The kind of abuse that was going on was mortifying to me,
I couldn't tell anyone.
I was humiliated.
The abuse started that night, my wedding night.
I got married in the 60s,and first of all,
spousal abuse was not even a term then,
I don't think even child abuse was recognized then,
and that was first, then after spousal abuse
and domestic violence was recognized it was not believed
to happen in affluent homes with educated people.
>>Narrator: After putting up with years of violent abuse
that left her in fear of her life, Helen finally decided
to divorce her husband.
But shortly after announcing her intention,
an accident turned Helen's world upside down.
>>Helen: I was taking trash out of the house & evidently slipped
on ice at the end of the driveway,
and went over backwards & hit my head on the edge
of the concrete curb, I don't remember any of this,
and had a brain injury then
but like many women I didn't understand
that I had a brain injury.
I had told my husband maybe two weeks before
that we were getting a divorce, he had made the second attempt
on my life and I decided that was it.
It's very hard to explain to somebody what it's like to walk
out of your house in the morning carrying a big thing of trash
and by the time you have made it back
into your house you're disabled I mean it was an accident it
happened in a split second.
>>Narrator: Helen now lives with traumatic brain injury.
It has left her with cognitive problems, loss of memory
and executive functioning.
Her husband lost no time
in exploiting her new vulnerability.
>>Helen: My husband knew there was something wrong,
but he never got me to a doctor, he never helped in any way,
he just used that time to set things up for him,
the way he wanted them to be.
I actually had to take him to court
to get my medications, and...
I needed a medication card to get it for insurance things &
at some point he just crumpled up the insurance card
and threw it at me, but this was not until we got to court.
>>Dr. Cramer: Abusers often use the court system as a way
to continue to abuse and harass women with disabilities.
And so they might be trying to change court dates,
prolonging court, getting continuances as a way
to continue to harass and abuse women with disabilities and I'd
like for judges to try to be aware of when they think
that might be happening in the court room.
>>Narrator: Recently, Helen was involved
in a serious automobile accident,
leaving her with permanent injury to her legs and eyesight.
While hospitalized, the legal harassment continued.
>>Helen: While trying to recover
from this trauma he constantly set court dates and all sorts
of scary things for me threatening
to cut off my support and of course since I was not able
to work, I was a housewife and I did volunteer work,
I was not eligible for standard benefits, he has terrified me
with litigation, it ended up costing me almost two years
of my support to keep my support going,
I don't know what I'm going to do about that.
>>Narrator: It takes a lot of courage for a victim
of violence to seek help.
For someone with disabilities, there are even greater hurdles.
They have to overcome the financial
and physical challenges of accessing the legal system.
And very often, the abuser is also their caregiver,
raising a whole other set of problems.
>>Dr. Cramer: When women with disabilities are partnered with
or married to non disabled men,
many people think those men are just so wonderful
because they're partnering with women with disabilities,
they're taking care of her, and so when she does start
to tell other people about abuse, other people tend not
to believe her Then the women are concerned that the person
who provide at least some
of their personal assistance services may be arrested
and then what are they going to do in order
to get personal assistance services?
>>Narrator: Distrust of law enforcement's capacity
to remove the danger is another problem.
>>Gail: I had told him that I was going to leave and that
of course provoked a fight and argument in itself
because how dare me think that I could do that?
So that led to a tremendous fight, that also lead
to being held I the bedroom at gunpoint,
this is with two children in the house, and basically it went
on like that for about 48 hours.
He had knocked me out, he had threatened to shoot me
if I leave the room, so the kids were pretty much
on their own for 2 days.
My brother came, they knew that we were having trouble,
my family did, so he came to check on me,
and it was very simple, when he came to my back entrance door,
I ran out the front door, grabbed the kids...
so and from that point on, I did call again,
called the cops again, and for whatever reason I didn't tell
them about the gun, but just being so afraid
of what he would do if he got out....
At that time they seemed to always get out very quickly,
you know they'd get a bail bondsman and they were out.
>>Narrator: Only a small minority
of domestic abuse cases come before the courts,
sometimes in the guise of divorce hearings.
The whole process can be very difficult
for those with disabilities.
>>Dr. Cramer: It might take awhile
to establish a relationship so that they feel safe to be able
to communicate their story.
And so, sometimes the quickness of the court, the in and out
of the court, women with disabilities feel overwhelmed
and they don't feel like they are able
to tell their stories fully within the court environment.
>>Helen: When I go to court...
most judges know nothing about brain injury;
I didn't before I had one,
and because they don't see me function in my environment,
they have no idea what my day is like,
what planning & effort it takes for me
to do even the most mundane thing.
>>Dr. Cramer: Women who seem to be changing their story often
or who can't remember particular details
of incidents that happen.
They might be...they might have a traumatic brain injury.
They might have a cognitive impairment
and then what the judge is seeing what appears
to be a woman whose just changing her story all the time
is really a manifestation of the disability, the head injury.
>>Helen: I can easily be made to look
like a woman who's malingering; I can easily be made
to look mentally unstable.
It's not that hard to make me cry, it's not that hard
to make me contradict myself so I can look like a liar.
>>Dr. Cramer: A woman who has a particularly flat affect
and she's recounting a story
of horrific abuse she may be experiencing severe depression
or post traumatic stress disorder
and that accounts for the flat affect.
>>Gail: I would not allow myself to tell anyone the whole story
because I didn't trust anyone.
Social services were the people who took your children away.
And that's where fear comes from.
You know the situation that you have at home, you know what it's
like you're used to it, yes, it's painful
but my children have a home they have clothes they have food