This submission argues that women and girls with disability experience sexual and reproductive violence across their lives in relation to menstruation and reproduction, sexual identity and expression, intimate relationships, pregnancy, and parenting, and that this topic has been largely neglected since the Royal Commission commenced in April 2019.

This submission specifically draws attention to the issues relevant to people with disability in the UN's Draft General Comment of the Subcommittee on Prevention of Torture (SPT), which does not yet explicitly discuss the unique factors which underpin and shape the deprivation of liberty and treatment of people with disability.

For many women with disabilities in Australia, the fundamental human right to create a family is not realisable. Instead, women with disabilities have traditionally been discouraged or denied the opportunity, to bear and raise children. They have been, and continue to be perceived as asexual, dependent, recipients of care rather than care-givers, and generally incapable...