International Day of Persons with Disabilities: Refreshed Disability Strategy, recent research and new resources

International Day of Persons with Disabilities

The International Day of Persons with Disabilities (IDPD) is celebrated every year on 3 December. The theme for 2025 is “Fostering disability inclusive societies for advancing social progress”. This story highlights research and resources published during the year, recognising the ongoing work being done by community-led organisations, researchers and government agencies to address violence against tāngata whaikaha Māori, disabled people and D/deaf people in Aotearoa New Zealand.

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Refresh of the New Zealand Disability Strategy

In time for the International Day of Persons with Disabilities (IDPD) 2025, the Minister for Disability Issues, Louise Upston launched a new 5-year New Zealand Disability Strategy 2026-2030. Whaikaha | Ministry of Disabled People led the strategy refresh and public consultation. The vision for the strategy is:
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New Zealand is an equitable and accessible place for all disabled people and their whānau – where disabled people thrive, contribute, and choose the lives they want to lead.

‍In her media release, Louise Upston says:

"This strategy shows what the Government will do over the next five years through meaningful, measurable actions to improve the lives of disabled people.
This is our country’s third disability strategy. While much has already been achieved, disabled people still face barriers preventing them from thriving and leading full lives."

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The new strategy includes:

• a vision and principles to set the direction for the strategy, and guide work across government for disabled people and tāngata whaikaha Māori
• 5 priority outcome areas of education, employment, health, housing and justice. Each has a goal and a set of actions to support the goal
• a monitoring approach to measure the government’s progress towards delivering the strategy.

The strategy highlights disabled people’s disproportionate rates of family and sexual violence, and that:

"The higher levels of violence and abuse faced by disabled people may also contribute to disabled young people offending at higher levels, as there are strong links between childhood trauma and children and young people offending."

It notes that disabled people also report facing challenges in upholding their rights in legislation across the criminal and civil justice systems.

Whaikaha has outlined next steps, including development of an implementation plan and a framework to measure the impact of the strategy on the lives of disabled people and tāngata whaikaha Māori. Whaikaha will report annually to Parliament and will publish updates on interactive dashboards on their website.

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Contributing strategies:

The development of Atoatoali'o: National Pacific Disability approach, building on previous work with Pacific stakeholders, also contributed to the refresh the New Zealand Disability Strategy.

The NZSL Strategy 2026 – 2036 titled 'New Zealand Sign Language – everyone, everywhere, every day', was also launched in November 2025. This strategy reflects the NZSL Board’s ambitions for sign language as a strong and vibrant language that is recognised and embraced as a living language for all New Zealanders.  

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New disability prevalence statistics

The Household Disability Survey 2023, published by Statistics New Zealand in February 2025, found that 1 in 6 New Zealanders are disabled, based on the criteria used in the survey. Findings include:

• Just over 1 in 5 Māori were disabled (21 percent). The Māori disability rate was higher than the national rate and the rate for all other ethnic groups. For Māori children, the rate was 14 percent (higher than the national rate of 10 percent), and for Māori adults it was 24 percent (higher than the national rate of 18 percent).
• People in the LGBTIQ+ (Rainbow) population were more likely to be disabled (29 percent) than those in the non-LGBTIQ+ population (17 percent).
• Māori and LGBTIQ+ populations had higher rates of disability, despite both groups being younger on average than the total population.

The Household Disability Survey also found that “disabled adults were more likely to feel unsafe than non-disabled adults”. The two situations with the highest proportion of disabled adults feeling unsafe were:

• being alone in their neighbourhood after dark (32 percent)
• using or waiting for public transport (17 percent).

This survey did not ask about situations related to family violence.

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Reports on the persistence of poverty for disabled people

In Whaikaha, whaimana: Our voices count, Disability Leadership Canterbury surveyed the disability sector in the Canterbury region, identifying the negative impacts that the changes to disability support services and the Review of Whaikaha, Ministry of Disabled People in 2024 had on disabled people. Impacts included increased psychological harm, burnout for carers, financial strain, loss of employment, increased isolation, denial of human rights, confusion, and inconsistency in service delivery.

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Te Manatū Whakahiato Ora | Ministry of Social Development (MSD) published Material hardship of children in households with a disabled person as one of the outputs of a research programme to better understand experiences of material hardship and income support among disabled people and people with long-term health conditions.

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On 3 September 2025, the Minister for Social Development announced further changes to Disability Support Services funding effective from 2026.

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Disabled people’s experiences of violence

Femicide and disabled women

Aotearoa New Zealand’s first femicide report written by the family violence death review subject matter experts on behalf of the National Mortality Review Committee includes a section on women as adults at risk (pp. 52-57). It particularly focuses on women experiencing chronic health conditions, noting:

"… that there is also a heightened risk of violence experience for disabled people, D/deaf, and tangata whaikaha (disabled) Māori. At present, insufficient data is available to fully consider these groups in this report. In this context, we note it as another data gap."

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The report notes “cases where an older woman was increasingly unwell and her partner chose to end her life and then his own, ostensibly to reduce ‘pain and suffering’.”
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It also highlights the impact of repeated trauma resulting in chronic encephalopathy (CTE) and brain injuries caused by non-fatal strangulation:

“The health consequences of non-fatal strangulation and head injury through assault increase women’s need for care and support. Both experiences are identified as risk factors for escalating physical abuse to the point of homicide, and both create the conditions for potential suicide.”

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Research on responding to and preventing violence

Webinar on violence free futures

In July 2025, Te Kāhui Tangata Tiki | Human Rights Commission hosted a webinar, Building a violence free future for Tāngata Whaikaha Māori and all disabled people, which featured speakers discussing the drivers of violence, the barriers to addressing and responding to violence and abuse, and inclusive and accessible prevention and responses. The key points are found in A roadmap for a violence and abuse free future for disabled people in Aotearoa, available in te reo Māori, English and various accessible formats.

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Evaluation of adult safeguarding responses

An evaluation of the 12-month pilot of an adult safeguarding response in Counties Manukau, conducted during 2024, Safeguarding adults in Aotearoa New Zealand: The futility of micro and meso interventions without a legislative imperative (Roguski & Hager, 2025), found:

The 11 stakeholder participants unanimously asserted that the pilot had failed and concluded that efforts to disrupt conventional responses through short-term micro and meso level changes were futile. Rather, macro level change through the introduction of national adult safeguarding legislation is required…

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Disability Support Services currently contracts a number of providers to deliver the Disability Abuse Prevention and Response (DAPAR) service to prevent and respond to situations of abuse and neglect of disabled adults.

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Research on violence prevention and intersectional inequalities

In July 2025, a team from Massey University’s Centre for Culture-Centered Approach to Research and Evaluation (CARE) published Preventing violence in the disability margins: A culture-centered study in Aotearoa. Through interviews with predominantly Māori and low-income disabled individuals, it explored the systemic roots of violence and how their experiences can guide prevention of family violence and sexual violence.

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Experiences of tāngata whaikaha Māori (disabled Māori) during Covid-19

Research published in January 2025, Reclaiming indigenous systems of healing: experiences of disabled Māori of Māori-centric health service responses in Aotearoa New Zealand during the COVID-19 pandemic, (Roguski, et al, 2025), highlights the importance of Māori cultural values when delivering healthcare and related services.

New resources

Deaf Aotearoa |Tāngata Turi has partnered with VisAble to create a library of New Zealand Sign Language (NZSL) videos on understanding family and sexual violence. The topics covered are:

• Coercive control
• Isolation
• Emotional abuse
• Economic abuse
• Minimising, denying and blaming (gaslighting)
• Sexual abuse
• Using children as a tool
• Intimidation
• Physical abuse
• Using internalised Homophobia, Biphobia or Transphobia
• Privilege
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There are also NZSL resources in the Insider’s Guide series on the Are You Ok website, including written accounts from people with lived experience including How my vision loss was used against me.  
IHC has developed a guide to supporting decision-making – a guide for supporters of people with intellectual disability. There is further guidance on supported decision-making on the IHC website.

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Related news

On 1 December 2024, Whaikaha, Ministry of Disabled People moved from being a departmental agency hosted by Ministry of Social Development to a standalone public service department funded by a new vote, Vote Disabled People. The Disability Support Services part of the Ministry was transferred to MSD in September 2024.
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Whaikaha has published Pūrongo ā-tau | annual report 2024/2025, its first as a standalone entity, and Tuākī Whakamaunga Atu | Strategic intentions 2025 – 2028.