The Combatting Violence Against Women Program is a critically important initiative targeting a doubly marginalized group: women and girls with disabilities. Rooted in a deep understanding of intersectionality, this population faces a compounded risk of violence (physical, sexual, psychological, and economic) resulting from the intersection of gender-based discrimination and disability-based discrimination. This intersection not only increases their likelihood of experiencing violence but also hinders their access to protection mechanisms, justice, and support resources. The program’s goal goes beyond mere awareness to become an integrated framework aimed at achieving structural and societal change.

Empowerment and Capacity Building

A key pillar of the program is the empowerment of women and girls with disabilities to break the silence and fear imposed by double stigma.

• Leadership of activists: The program builds the capacity of this population to become activists and leaders in their communities, capable of recognizing, defending, and effectively claiming their rights.
• Providing skills: This includes equipping them with legal skills to understand legislation, psychological support to build resilience, and advocacy skills to amplify their voices in public spaces and decision-making processes.
• Breaking isolation: Empowerment aims to help women emerge from social isolation, which often increases their vulnerability to exploitation.

Adapting Services and Ensuring Access

The program places strong emphasis on ensuring that services for violence survivors are accessible and responsive to disability-related needs.

• Adapting shelters and centers: Working with government institutions and civil society organizations to ensure that shelters, police stations, clinics, and helplines are physically, psychologically, and informationally accessible.
• Specialized referral protocols: Developing and implementing specialized referral protocols that ensure survivors receive integrated, disability-inclusive support, including personal accompaniment services or assistance when needed.
• Informational and psychological access: Ensuring that information about seeking protection (such as helpline details) is available in accessible and understandable formats for everyone.

Policy and Legislative Advocacy

The organization plays an active role in policy advocacy to ensure that laws to combat violence are comprehensive.

• Integrating an intersectional perspective: Seeking to explicitly and effectively integrate disability and gender perspectives into laws to combat violence, ensuring that women with disabilities are not neglected in either the drafting or implementation of legislation.
• Compensation and rehabilitation: Pressing for appropriate compensation and rehabilitation services for their specific situations, including health, psychological, and social support after experiencing violence, tailored to the particularities of disability.
• Legal accountability: Working to strengthen accountability mechanisms to ensure perpetrators of violence are punished, taking into account the victim’s vulnerability and need for additional procedural protections.

Community Education and Behavioral Change

• Challenging stereotypes: The program engages in broad community education to challenge prevailing stereotypes and the double stigma surrounding women with disabilities, and to change public behaviors.
• Promoting inclusion and respect: This education aims to promote inclusion and respect for everyone’s human rights, affirming that efforts to combat violence cannot succeed unless an inclusive approach is adopted that leaves no one behind.

This program embodies a deep commitment to achieving genuine and comprehensive equality in Lebanese society by addressing one of the most complex forms of discrimination.