Disability commissioner calls for better protection for women with disabilities

Violence Against Women with Disabilities: Women's Representatives Called For in Residential Facilities

Women with disabilities living in residential facilities frequently experience violence. Yet according to SWR research, there is in many places no requirement to appoint women's representatives in such facilities. The Federal Disability Commissioner is now calling for this to change.

At the end of 2023, a case of sexual violence occurred in a residential facility for people with mental disabilities. According to a court ruling, a night-shift caregiver sexually abused a resident in her room and filmed the act with his mobile phone. The resident "was in a deep sleep or was drowsy due to the [...] administration of medication [...]," the ruling states. The perpetrator received a sentence of three years and six months in prison.

Such cases raise the question of how well women with disabilities are protected in residential facilities — and whether existing structures are sufficient to prevent or quickly uncover abuses.

Frequent Experiences of Sexual Violence

In June 2024, the Institute for Empirical Sociology at the University of Erlangen published a study commissioned by the Federal Ministry for Family Affairs and the Federal Ministry for Social Affairs. For the study, researchers surveyed 385 women with disabilities living in inpatient residential facilities about their experiences of violence.

According to the findings, 66 percent of those surveyed had experienced psychological violence since the age of 16, 50 percent had experienced physical violence, and more than one in five (22 percent) reported sexual violence. Every fifth incident is said to have occurred in residential facilities.

Human Rights Institute Calls for Women's Representatives

In 2023, the German Institute for Human Rights (DIMR) assessed how Germany implements the rights of people with disabilities in a parallel report to the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities — including Article 16, which guarantees protection from exploitation, violence and abuse. According to Sabrina Prem, a research associate at the institute, the prevalence of violence in residential facilities is "strikingly high." Protection from violence has "not yet become a priority, either in politics or in practice."

For years, the institute has been calling for women's representatives to be established in residential facilities nationwide, to serve as specialized contact persons for issues of violence.

"Women's representatives are a contact person for women and girls at eye level," says Sabrina Prem. This would provide a low-threshold point of contact for those affected. General violence protection concepts, home councils or resident representative bodies are not sufficient to adequately address the specific risks faced by women with disabilities.

Mandatory in Workshops, Voluntary in Residential Facilities

In workshops for people with disabilities, women's representatives have been mandatory nationwide since 2017. No such regulation exists for residential facilities. In response to an inquiry from SWR, the Federal Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs (BMAS) states that the introduction of women's representatives in residential settings is "fundamentally a matter for state legislators." A federal regulation making women's representatives mandatory in all residential facilities is not planned.

SWR surveyed the responsible social ministries of all 16 German states as to whether women's representatives in residential facilities for people with disabilities are required by law. The result: only three states — Rhineland-Palatinate, Thuringia and Bremen — have such a requirement. The majority point to existing violence protection concepts, home councils or resident representative bodies.

Federal Disability Commissioner Sees "Considerable Need to Catch Up"

For Jürgen Dusel, the Federal Government Commissioner for the Affairs of People with Disabilities, the implementation to date has been inadequate. In an interview with the SWR's team.recherche, he said the federal states would be "well advised" to incorporate into their care home laws or regulations standards that would oblige care home operators to employ women's representatives "in residential facilities for people with disabilities requiring support, for example."

According to Dusel, women with disabilities should "be advised and supported by peers, that is, by other women with disabilities." The goal is also to raise awareness "that violence is an issue for people with disabilities, and particularly for women with disabilities." "It is truly time now for the federal states to live up to their responsibilities in this area," said Dusel.