A woman of short stature has told how she has been spat on, sexually harassed, followed and was even hassled by strangers the night before she appeared at a royal commission.
In the second day of a five-day hearing, the disability royal commission on Tuesday received more disturbing evidence of people with disability being abused and harassed in public places.
Fiona Strahan, who works as project officer with Disability Voices Tasmania, said her legs were “shaking” as she recounted the time she was harassed by a group of men in Hobart.
Strahan had been walking on the street when men in two cars started yelling abuse at her.
“It first started off as jokes like, ‘Here mate, here is your girlfriend,’ you know; ‘here is your new wife’ or something like that,” Strahan said.
She was so fearful of being face-to-face with the men when the cars stopped at an upcoming set of traffic lights that a “trauma” response kicked in and she immediately started jaywalking in front of traffic in another direction, she said.
“The second car didn’t see me and screeched to a halt,” she said. “Then the third car saw me and I got to the other roadside of the road and by that time I was so completely in the middle of a very deep kind of trauma reaction … I had lost control of what I was doing.”
In another incident, Strahan said three men had blocked her path and demanded to take her picture.
“I had my hand out the entire time of the conversation … and they kind of got closer and they said, ‘Come on, come on, you’re really cute,’” she said. “Then it’s like, ‘Well, what about a cuddle and a kiss?’ And it’s like, ‘No.’ And this is in the middle of the goddamn day.”
Strahan said she had also been spat on in the past. On Monday night, she said, she had been with some colleagues who were also of short stature when a group of young men followed them and started talking loudly about “how many of us they had seen”.
She said many of these experiences were examples of “hate” that were similar to those of people who faced racism or homophobia.
Strahan has also been photographed without her consent, echoing evidence given by artist and academic Dr Debra Keenahan, who is also of short stature, during Monday’s hearing.
Jenni, a pseudonym given to another witness who gave evidence on Tuesday, recounted an incident where a large family of people demanded to take photos of her husband and baby daughter.
Jenni and her husband are of short stature, while their daughter, who is now nine, is not.
She said she had been at the chemist when she received a distressed phone call from her husband.
“They wanted to high-five him and all that comical stuff because it’s so much fun to meet a person of short stature,” Jenni said sarcastically.
“The group of people were just harassing him, wanting to take a photo and then realising he’s got our baby with him. They said: ‘We want a photo of you and your baby.’”
The strangers had taken their photos without their consent, despite her husband’s repeated refusals.
Jenni said the experience was common.
“From that moment on, every time we took [our daughter] out it was just constant harassment of ‘Can we take a photo of you?’” she said. “You say no. But they still take a photo.”
Her daughter was now at the age where she was trying to defend her parents, which Jenni said was unfair.
She didn’t post photos of the family on social media and avoided public places, such as the Melbourne show or large festivals, as a result.
The inquiry heard on Monday that only Tasmania and the ACT had laws prohibiting the vilification of people based on their disability.
The hearings continue.
