[2] Disabled people are easy targets for predators as they may not have the resources or abilities to escape an abusive situation or communicate about the occurrences.
Examples include: deficits in communication, limited social environment, disempowerment, and intimate contact required for hygiene dependency.
In facets such as school there is often a lack of efficient sex education for disabled youth and in combination of improper training for professionals working with these children, risks increase.
[5] A community-based participatory research study to assess abuse and current physical and mental health of 350 members within varying disabilities found a significant correlation with depressive symptoms and significant relations between childhood abuse and depression, PTSD, and negative physical health outcomes in adulthood.
The main finding was that interaction of childhood and adult abuse predicted increased negative physical and psychological health rates for those with developmental disabilities.
Catherine Thornberry and Karin Olson claim that carers often dehumanize disabled people, taking away their abilities and qualities that make them a person and lowering them to the level of just an object or a thing.
Many societies still view disabled people as weak and vulnerable, making it easy for the abuser to feel no remorse or to shift the blame away from themselves.
[14] Severe disability is a factor that increases the likelihood of elder abuse and neglect in nursing homes in Portugal.
WHO made a statement emphasizing poor public health surveillance of child maltreatment across the world which has been conveyed through examples such as the Adverse Childhood Experience questionnaire[3] which has been used to gain better understanding of the prevalence of abuse occurring worldwide, but comparisons can be challenging due to differing policies between regions.