Research project
Disabled women’s experiences of reporting sexual violence to the police
- Start date: 29 February 2024
- End date: 24 May 2024
- Funding: The Home Office
- Partners and collaborators: Liverpool Hope University
- Primary investigator: Dr Andrea Hollomotz
- Co-investigators: Shruthi Venkatachalam
- External co-investigators: Leah Burch, Liverpool Hope University
- Postgraduate students: Kharis Hutchison
In 2022 the Ministry of Justice (MoJ) commissioned our research team to conduct a qualitative research project with disabled victim-survivors of sexual violence. Some of our findings (on police reporting) were not of interest to MoJ, but they are of interest to the Home Office (HO), as they commission the police. MoJ have put us in touch with the Interpersonal Abuse Unit at the HO and we are currently negotiating with them over conducting a secondary data analysis on our existing dataset to bring out explicitly respondent’s experiences of reporting sexual violence to the police. The aim is to conduct further in-depth qualitative research and sociological analysis by drawing on our existing dataset and appraising the current literature and police/ practice landscape to draw attention to the disabling barriers and intersecting and multiple forms of oppression and discrimination disabled victim-survivors of sexual violence experience in their interactions with the police. The outcome will be to make a range of realisable recommendations for future practice, which will be of use to commissioners, practitioners and policy makers.
Publications and outputs
Hollomotz, A. and L. Burch (submit manuscript by end 2024). Disability and sexual violence: An intersectional analysis of journeys towards survival and justice. Basingstoke, Palgrave.
Hollomotz, A. (forthcoming in 2024). “I just felt that I was somebody who was there to be abused.” - A sociological analysis of structural causes for delayed naming of sexual violence at the intersection of disability and gender. Mental Capacity Law, Sexual Relationships, and Intimacy. B. Clough and L. Pritchard-Jones. Bristol, Bristol University Press.
Hollomotz, A., et al. (2023, 26-01). "Formal support needs of disabled victim-survivors of sexual violence: A qualitative research report." Retrieved 17-02-2023, 2023. The Ministry of Justice report is available here, and in large print and easy read versions.