Abstract
Women with disabilities in India face higher levels of emotional, physical, and sexual violence compared to women without disabilities. The findings highlight the need for the prevention of violence accounting for disability and extend support services for women with disabilities. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved) Objective: Women with disabilities have a disproportionate risk of intimate partner violence (IPV) in India and global level, compared to “nondisabled women.” This study examines the physical, sexual, and emotional violence gap perpetrated by intimate partners on ever-married women with and without disabilities. Method: This study has used the information of 62,573 ever-married women from the fifth round of the nationally representative survey, that is, National Family Health Survey (2019–2021). Descriptive statistics were used to identify gaps in physical, emotional, and sexual IPV experienced ever and in the last 12 months, by disability status. Results: Lifetime IPV prevalence among women with disabilities was 10% points higher than women without disabilities, with the largest disparity observed for emotional violence (11.54% points), which is nearly double that of physical violence (5.76% points). Recent experiences of IPV followed similar patterns, where the prevalence of emotional and physical violence was 8.96% and 2.12% points higher among women with disabilities. Notably, emotional violence gaps were highest among urban, educated, working women with disabilities, challenging conventional vulnerability assumptions. Sexual violence showed the smallest gap (1.03%). Conclusion: These findings reveal emotional abuse as the predominant but overlooked form of IPV against women with disabilities in India. Current violence prevention programs focusing primarily on physical abuse should be expanded to include women with disabilities. Also, standard measurement tools, effective prevention strategies, and intervention programs are needed globally to address this hidden epidemic. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved)