 Hello, I'm Cheryl Tayuska, the Director of Victim Services at the National Organization for Victim Assistance. Criminal victimization of people with disabilities is a very difficult topic and one that is very rarely discussed, but it's very important because there are so many people with disabilities in this country and many, many people with disabilities become victims of crime. What you're about to hear are people with disabilities talking in their own words about their victimization and how the victimization has affected their lives. Living in an institution, I was abused, you know, being hit by staff, I was, you know, I got hit by everybody in my family really. With me dealing with much abuse, I was crying a lot, you're not crying all the time because nobody don't understand you. I was in a abusive relationship, which I got real quick because, I mean, he just beat me up and pushed me all around and I said, I don't want that. There's a bunch of us that have been circularly abused. They don't believe you sometimes, sometimes they think that a person is lying because they can't see a person but it's just who is mentally retarded can be hurt. This is really, really difficult to even think about. It's difficult to think that anyone with a disability would be the victim of a crime. We don't want to think about that, but I think we have to start addressing it. People see us as being weak and vulnerable and so we become those perfect targets. If someone without a disability is victimized, well, they can probably find a shelter maybe or they can maybe go move in with a friend, well, a person with mental retardation just doesn't have access to that as easily and sometimes not at all. There is such a huge amount of underreporting or not even underreporting, not telling people that we have been victimized by crime. A lot of people with disabilities are not aware of the services that are out there and what can happen. In order to empower an individual, a person has to know their rights, they have to know what services are available to them and that's the first, it's the key thing is information. I am the founder and director of abused deaf women's advocacy services, ADWAS, in Seattle, Washington. In the past deaf women would go into hearing agencies and the focus would be on her deafness and communication issues. The rape or the violence that she's experienced is forgotten. We provide the same services as hearing agencies provide except that our focus is on deaf women. I am a rape survivor. I had no interpreters for my interviews, I had to rely completely on written communication. Basically the mentality was, what did you do to make this happen? And I remember feeling scared, angry and embarrassed. The police just took the report and left. I was alone in my home crying and grieving asking myself why this person abused me. I felt all shaky and emotional and at the same time wondering why there wasn't an interpreter. We felt that the philosophy of deaf people helping deaf people is ideal. I called ADWAS because I was overwhelmed with so much paperwork. Making police reports, contacting detectives, making appointments, writing statements, collecting evidence and talking to investigators, speaking with lawyers and on and on there is a lot of work for victims. Trying to get through the legal system on your own is, it's almost like being a victim all over again, having to go through that experience. They have helped with these frustrating situations. They provided everything that I needed. The burden felt lighter as if a burden had been removed. Now we have 16 programs including ADWAS, our program, across the country. People now talk about the issues and basically know that it's not acceptable. They know that domestic violence and sexual assault are not acceptable behaviors. When I was driving home one evening I was shot by an individual in a passing car kidnapped by the same individual, stabbed or raped and left for dead. One of the bullets went directly through both of my eyes. I had no time in the midst of the crisis to focus on the fact that I'm going to be blind. What do I do? How do I adjust? And I had a lot of questions but I had virtually no answers. The Division of Blind Services was very good at telling me what they thought I should be doing as a blind person. I think they would have benefited more if they would have understood victimization and maybe had a victim advocate attached to the Division of Blind Services to work with an individual who is newly blinded as a result of violent crime. When you have a disability that is caused by a violent crime you think there is nothing left. My life used to be good. It was full. It was wonderful. And now I am left as damaged goods. That's not the case. That is definitely not the case. There is always hope. The Attorney General has been absolutely fantastic in accommodating my disability. They have provided me with a professional position to actually not have to be the victim but to be the victim service professional who can now go on and assist other victims. It took me a long time to really understand mental counseling, just to really understand the situation that I was in. Speaking for yourself is a self-help organization of handicapped adults giving them a hand about if they are going to fall down and try to help them get up and be a good listener. Sometimes words can educate people. I started writing my own story. I kind of put my own story together and started thinking about my childhood and I started writing things down. I started handing them out to people and I got people's attention faster than me telling it. Speaking for myself, it helps me understand what services that I could use, like if I need a lawyer or something, and to be able to call somebody that understands disability. The way to say no, how do we say no when everybody say, how do you say no? No! I care about the people being hurt. I don't want people to go through the things that I want to and I like the other consumers know too they got the right to speak up. Use your voice. Now I'm constantly out on the road helping other people distort their own self-advocacy group. Bad things do happen to good people and we don't live in a personal world. You know, it gives me a good feeling inside to be able to help other people. If someone with a disability does not come forward or does not disclose, they're never going to get beyond it. But I think when you tell someone and you talk to someone that's part of the starting of the healing process, victims often feel that they are the only ones going through this. And I think that it's a very powerful thing for them to see other victims and to realize that they're not alone, that there's a connection. At the present time we have like two parallel universes. You have the disability service providers on one side, you have the victim service providers on the other side. We can start cross-connecting, we can start building bridges and then we can both provide more effective services to both of our categories. You'll say there's crimes compensation, I have the application right here. People in the disability advocacy field need to be more proactive and ask, just point blank, ask what is going on and if victimization is happening. Just to be open to listening to people who've been victimized. But I can guarantee you there are a lot of people out there with disabilities who are suffering in silence and it's needless and the disability service providers need to know this. Victim advocates and disability advocates would be surprised once they started talking to each other because I know I was, how much they have in common in terms of their goals in looking at how do we make safer lives for people with disabilities. Bringing both of our resources together is going to provide much more of a bedrock in really providing effective services for people. Why is it so important to speak up, to have confidence in myself and to be strong. It's important to get the help you need. When you do, you'll become stronger and become whole. You just had an opportunity to hear from victims of crime as they described for you in their own words what happened to them and how the experience changed their lives. The important thing for you to remember is, if you should ever become a victim of crime or if anybody you know becomes a victim of crime, there is help available for you and you do have rights as a crime victim. You don't have to go through this experience alone.