A new report by Women With Disabilities Australia (WWDA), Harmony Alliance: Migrant and refugee women for change, and National Ethnic Disability Alliance (NEDA), looks at the combined efforts in 2022 to examine the experiences of CaLD women and girls with disability when accessing formal supports, and the impacts of gender, disability, race, ethnicity, culture, language, visa status, and citizenship status.
Introduction
Across Australia, there is a lack of information and disaggregated data on the experiences of CaLD women and girls with disabilities within Australian society. Importantly, there are growing appeals for research that analyses how gender, disability, race, ethnicity, culture, language, visa status, and citizenship status intersect. Recognising this gap, WWDA, NEDA and Harmony Alliance combined efforts in 2022 to examine the experiences of CaLD women and girls with disability (WGwD) when accessing formal supports, and the impacts of gender, disability, race, ethnicity, culture, language, visa status, and citizenship status.
Broadly, the project focused on how CALD Women and Girls experience access to support services in the health and disability sectors, and barriers that they face.
Due to its timing, the project also provided insight into the impact that the COVID-19 pandemic has had on the ability of CaLD women to access formal support
and services.
Aim
The study aimed to address a critical gap in research on the experiences of CaLD women and girls with disabilities (CaLD WGwD) within Australia. It explored how CaLD WGwD experience access to support services in the health and disability sectors, and barriers they face.
Methodology
The study was conducted in 2022 and consisted of three components;
a literature review, an online national multilingual survey, and a set of online focus group interviews
The literature review highlighted gaps in the existing literature and provided a broad overview of past key issues and experiences faced by CaLD people with disabilities in Australia that informed the online focus groups and the national online survey design.
The survey was co-designed with bi- and multilingual experts and used an intersectional feminist approach. It was available in Arabic, English, Mandarin, Nepali, Spanish and Swahili and consisted of 35 multiple-choice questions.
Focus group interviews: A total of 15 CaLD people, predominantly identifying as women and some as non-binary, took part in the focus groups. Participants identified their cultural heritage from a wide variety of countries, and there was a wide variety of lived experiences of migration and disability.
Key findings
The study gives voice to over 70 CaLD WGwD and offers a meaningful picture of their experiences with support services in Australia, identified access barriers and lived experiences.
Brief Survey Findings
- Survey respondents perceived the reasons for discrimination intersect with their disability, gender and the language they speak.
- For those who could access language assistance, they were assigned interpreters who did not speak the relevant language or dialect. Frequently, assumptions were made about the participants’ capabilities according to visible disabilities or linguistic differences. These assumptions often stood in lieu of personal consultation.
- The focus groups also highlighted the inconsistency of outcomes within services, such as the NDIS contributes to confusion, extended periods of inadequate support and overall burnout.
- CaLD women with disabilities experience compounded stigma due to their gender, race, migration status, disability status and cultural and linguistic backgrounds. Many reflected feeling that they were too ‘complex’ to have their needs adequately met by service providers.
- CaLD women with disabilities found that the intersecting stigmas and pressures of being feminine-identifying, CaLD, and disabled have direct impacts on self- esteem, repressing their self-advocacy.
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