Recent stories have detailed sexual harassment and abuse in politics, business, and other areas of American life. People with autism and other disabilities are especially at risk.
In The Politics of Autism, I write:
People with disabilities are victims of violent crime three times as often as people without disabilities. The Bureau of Justice Statistics does not report separately on autistic victims, but it does note that the victimization rate is especially high among those whose disabilities are cognitive. A small-sample study of Americans and Canadians found that adults with autism face a greater risk of sexual victimization than their peers. Autistic respondents were more than twice as likely to say that had been the victim of rape and over three times as likely to report unwanted sexual contact.Click here for resources from RespectAbility
Research suggests that women with disabilities are more likely to experience domestic violence, emotional abuse, and sexual assault than women without disabilities.1 Women with disabilities may also feel more isolated and feel they are unable to report the abuse, or they may be dependent on the abuser for their care. Like many women who are abused, women with disabilities are usually abused by someone they know, such as a partner or family member.In 2014, S. M. Brown-Lavoie, M. A. Viecili, and J. A. Weiss published an article in the Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders titled "Sexual Knowledge and Victimization in Adults with Autism Spectrum Disorders." The abstract of the study, which involved ASD people in Canada:
There is a significant gap in understanding the risk of sexual victimization in individuals with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) and the variables that contribute to risk. Age appropriate sexual interest, limited sexual knowledge and experiences, and social deficits, may place adults with ASD at increased risk. Ninety-five adults with ASD and 117 adults without ASD completed questionnaires regarding sexual knowledge sources, actual knowledge, perceived knowledge, and sexual victimization. Individuals with ASD obtained less of their sexual knowledge from social sources, more sexual knowledge from non-social sources, had less perceived and actual knowledge, and experienced more sexual victimization than controls. The increased risk of victimization by individuals with ASD was partially mediated by their actual knowledge. The link between knowledge and victimization has important clinical implications for interventions.
