Gabi Plattner (Frauenhaus Tyrol) and Sabine Mandl (Ludwig Boltzmann Institute of Fundamental and Human Rights) successfully carried out their fifth two-day workshop at MOHI in Tyrol. The workshop focused on raising awareness and sensitizing caretakers from a variety of professional backgrounds towards preventing violence against persons with disabilities.

For several years, MOHI (Sozialintegrative Alltagsbegleitung) has pursued the goal of extending the best possible protection mechanisms towards persons with disabilities within the context of its everyday care, and to provide support in response to violence. As a result, the management was trained accordingly and a guideline on the protection of persons against violence developed. For five years now, employees have received such continuous training and sensitization methods in these workshops.

The midpoint of the workshops included an exploration into the multiple dimensions of violence, its dynamics and root causes, and the risks factors, which foster violence, such as dependency and inequitable power structures. Continuing this theme, participants also discussed how protection mechanisms must be created and designed in order to substantively support persons who are at risk to be exposed to violence. The focus remained besides on human rights obligations and relevant criminal offences, also on forms of gender-specific violence against women with disabilities and their impact.