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22 October 2013updated 26 Sep 2015 10:46am

How deaf women are vulnerable to domestic abuse: the tragic story of Safiya

Deaf women are twice as likely as hearing women to experience domestic abuse. A disability, such as deafness, makes victims more vulnerable to abuse, and the same disability leaves them more vulnerable to not ever being able to escape it.

By Frances Ryan

Safiya is in a cellar. She’s ten years old and is deaf and mute. It’s cold and damp and she can’t hear who’s coming.

It was back in Pakistan that her mother and father died and she’s been brought somewhere dark she doesn’t know.

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