Sexual Violence in the Workplace Is Prevalent for Women With Disabilities

While there is a growing body of research and reporting on the sexual violence faced by people with disabilities, little of it has delved into the workplace.

Monika Mitra, director of the Lurie Institute for Disability Policy at Brandeis University, said some describe sexual violence against people with disabilities “as a silent epidemic.” Mitra has done research on sexual violence against people with disabilities, but not in the workplace. To her knowledge, no one has.

“We know that disabled people, men and women, are significantly more vulnerable to different forms of abuse,” Mitra said. She also noted that there has not been research on the experiences of nonbinary disabled people’s experience of abuse; SurveyMonkey did not reach enough nonbinary people with disabilities to break out in this poll.

However, the poll did find elevated rates of sexual harassment and assault in the workplace for disabled men: 23 percent of disabled men reported experiencing sexual harassment or abuse in the workplace, compared with 11 percent of non-disabled men.