Ena Chadha is a senior human rights lawyer, educator, investigator and mediator and Chair of the Human Rights Legal Support Centre. Ena served as co-counsel to DisAbled Women’s Network of Canada in presenting DAWN’s intervener case before the Supreme Court of Canada in Ahulwalia v. Ahulwalia.
An upcoming Supreme Court of Canada ruling could reshape how the law understands intimate partner violence. Last year, the Court heard arguments in the family law case of Ahluwalia v. Ahluwalia. The appellant wife asserted that Canadian law should allow survivors of abusive relationships to claim civil damages for intimate partner violence.
For women with disabilities, who make up 30 % of women in Canada, this case is about equality and the urgent need for the law to recognize a pattern of discriminatory abuse known as coercive control, a constellation of oppressive actions used by abusers to monitor, regulate, manipulate and degrade victims and exert control over their daily lives.
Women with disabilities are 50% more likely to experience higher rates of intimate‐partner violence than women without disabilities and are subjected to intense disability-specific controlling behaviours that restrict their autonomy and isolate them from support. They experience multiple overlapping forms of abuse, often over longer periods and often by a perpetrator who uses coercive control to exploit dependency and disabling environments.
Women with disabilities report partners controlling medication, hiding mobility aids, withholding care like toileting and dressing, restricting social contact or preventing access to services as part of the abusive surveillance, intimidation, financial manipulation and isolation. Single acts are often disguised as caregiving and may appear minor, but collectively entrench a system of dependence that makes escape impossible.
For women with disabilities, the legal gap in recognizing coercive abuse is dangerous: it perpetuates invisibility and systemic injustice, erasing how power is exploited to reinforce dependency.
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The DisAbled Women’s Network of Canada intervened in the case and urged the Supreme Court to view coercive control through an equality lens and acknowledge the reality of the distinct abuse experienced by disabled women in abusive relationships.
In Ahluwalia, the Ontario Superior Court recognized the cumulative nature of the abuse suffered by the wife did not fit neatly within traditional legal categories that limit civil cases to those of battery, leading the Court to identify a new civil cause of action: the tort of family violence.
The Ontario Court of Appeal overturned that decision, finding that existing torts of assault, battery and intentional infliction of emotional distress were sufficient to address the harm.
But advocates say the Appellate court erred, arguing current laws do not recognize the pattern of coercive control used by abusers who take advantage of disability-related caregiving and decision-making. Current assault, battery and emotional injury frameworks do not capture the destructive nature of coercive control women with disabilities face because those civil law torts focus on physical acts.
The Supreme Court must decide if there is a systemic gap in the law in failing to understand the disability-discriminatory dynamics.
Coercive control may not show up as bruises and broken bones, but it is as pervasive and insidious as physical violence. Abusers target disability-related vulnerabilities, like tampering with assistive devices, mistreating service dogs, dictating medical interventions like sterilization and forced abortions, and financial abuse like confiscating disability benefits. Some women are threatened with institutionalization. When we look at these toxic behaviours cumulatively, the pernicious nature and dangerous abuse of coercive control is clearly a form of violence.
Women with disabilities also face systemic barriers when attempting to leave abusive relationships. Accessible housing is scarce across Canada. Emergency shelters routinely lack accessible facilities. Communication supports or staff trained to respond to disability-related needs are often absent.
Economic inequality compounds these challenges. Women with disabilities experience significantly higher rates of poverty than women without disabilities and financial dependence can trap survivors in abusive environments.
The Supreme Court now has an opportunity to articulate a principled framework that reflects contemporary understanding of intimate partner violence that acknowledges the discriminatory coercive dynamics experienced by women with disabilities.
Recognizing coercive control would affirm for women with disabilities that our nation and our laws see the full reality of the gravity of the unique harms they experience.
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