Disability hate crime government report out

[amberlight]

www.equalityhumanrights.com/en/publicationsandresources/Documents/Disability/Disabled_peoples_experi encesviolence21.pdf

Really interesting stuff for any disabled person or parents of children with SN, and very good news that the report is out and that people in power are starting to think about the issues.

At present, hardly any disabled people are able to access justice for disability hate crime. Less than 200 reported successes in courts for the whole of last year on the latest figures, even though there are 6 million of us, and up to 80% of us are victims of related hate crime (depending on the disability we have).

Useful reading if people want to know more about how the government and police are tackling things, since 'lack of awareness of our own rights' is one of the biggest limiting factors, it says.

What is a disability hate crime? People may think it's calling someone with a disability a really rude name, or hitting them. But its actual definition is that there has to be disability-related hostility, which also can be defined as obvious unfriendliness or antagonism because of the disability or behaviour directly caused by it.

(Antagonism = trying to 'wind someone up' knowing that because of their disability they'll react a certain way to it, aimed at causing them distress or embarrassment).

thanks very much for posting, it's a v important issue. will read through report when less hot and tired!

tclanger, the agencies suspect a lot of under-reporting of bullying by those on the autism spectrum. For a start, many of us can't see body language or facial expressions so would miss the subtleties of rude expressions. And we can't always spot sarcasm, so might miss that too. Nor can we always hear tone of voice particularly well, so may think people are laughing with us, not at us.

Plus our tendency to often focus on something to the exclusion of all else, and often not understand social groups, means that some of us may totally miss the 'being sent to coventry' stuff, or think that it was actually rather nice since that way we don't have to work so hard on the social stuff.

It's sometimes like asking someone who's blind whether someone's ever stuck up two finger at them or asking someone who's deaf if someone's ever said rude things about them behind their back. They won't know.