Dear WWDWA Inc members,
Some of you may have heard about the taxi driver who was recently charged with sexually assaulting women with disabilities who were passengers in his Maxi Taxi. If you haven’t, or don’t know much about what happened, you can read the following links for more information:
Taxi Driver Charged With Sexually Assaulting Disabled Woman
Cabbie Admits To Raping Passengers
An Unlikely Hero
Sexual assault is a very difficult thing to talk about. Especially for women with disabilities. But as hard as it is, we need to talk about it. We need to talk about how it affects us. We need to talk about what could have been done to prevent the assaults, we need to talk about what would make us feel and be safer. Often the solutions that are provided by service providers and the able-bodied community are ones that just make us feel more silenced and vulnerable.
So this is the time for us to speak up, not as individuals, but as a group, as many voices with different experiences, but with the same desire to feel safe in our lives in our community. But we need to talk to each other before we can have an effective voice, for so many of us it is too frightening and overwhelming to do it on our own.
WWDWA Inc Members, how would you like to have this conversation? Would you prefer to have a forum about this, or have a survey you can answer without giving your name, or contact WWDWA Inc privately to give your thoughts and ideas? Or is there some other way you would feel comfortable in telling us your story? What would make you feel safer when travelling by taxi?
Contact us and let us know what you think.
What do you want us to tell government departments, service providers and the community?
