A/HRC/20/5 accommodation for women victims of violence, are often inaccessible to women and girls with disabilities. This is particularly true for women with a mobility limitation, as emergency accommodation facilities often fail to meet the minimum physical standards for disability access. Women and girls with disabilities also encounter difficulties in their access to health and social services available to the general population, owing to mobility and communication barriers and the lack of adequate training of staff, including on how to communicate with women with sensory or intellectual disabilities. Several States recognized this shortcoming, and some are developing pilot projects to address it.48 38. With regard to protection and prevention measures, and initiatives addressing the cases of women and girls with disabilities who are institutionalized or living in supported accommodation, several submissions referred to existing provisions to ensure regular visits and inspections, and to the existence of protocols for the prevention of violence by professional caregivers. There was, however, little data on inspection reports, the appropriateness and use of the data collected, and on resources available to ensure regular oversight of institutions and proper training of caregivers. Reports submitted by nongovernmental and disability organizations indicate that these efforts are still inadequate and ineffective. C. Prosecution and punishment 39. Article 13 of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities requires States parties to ensure that persons with disabilities have the right to have access to justice, including procedural and age-specific accommodations to facilitate their participation in legal proceedings. There was insufficient information in the submissions received to compare the number of State prosecution of crimes involving violence against women and girls with disabilities with the rest of the population. The Special Rapporteur on torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment noted that societal barriers limit persons with disabilities access to justice on an equal basis with others. 49 This view is supported by the findings of non-governmental organizations indicating that incidents of violence against women and girls with disabilities are often not investigated owing to social barriers.50 These barriers include the failure of law enforcement officials to file criminal complaints, because of their stereotypical perception of women with disabilities; and structural barriers, such as the requirement of legal capacity in order to be viewed as a “competent witness”, and laws that permit certain forms of violence, such as electroconvulsive treatment and electric shocks, or fail to criminalize specific forms of violence experienced by women and girls with disabilities (see paragraphs 12 – 27 above). 40. Women and girls with disabilities may be less aware of their rights and the means to claim them. As discussed above, victims are also often unable to recognize instances of violence or may be unwilling to report them when perpetrated by caregivers or people in their immediate environment for fear of losing support. In addition, often women cannot 48 49 50 For example, in Sweden and Norway, organizations for women with disabilities and crisis centres have concerted their efforts to find ways to improve services offered to women with disabilities who have been victims of violence. In the United States of America, the State of Illinois has, since 2006, conducted a disability responsiveness review of all 33 rape crisis centres in the State, and developed a tool kit for them and all disability organizations. These vulnerabilities include “unspeakable indignities, neglect, severe forms of restraint and seclusion, as well as physical, mental and sexual violence”. A/63/175, para. 38, Impact: feature issue on violence against women with developmental or other disabilities, Institute on Community Integration and Research and Training Center on Community Living, University of Minnesota, vol. 13, No. 3 (available from http://ici.umn.edu/products/impact/133/). 13