Book excerpt: This book breaks new ground in ensuring access to the criminal justice system for one of the most vulnerable groups in the disability sphere: those individuals who have little or no functional speech. Their voices have been silent for too long. The book provides an international perspective on violence against children and adults with disabilities. It focusses on promising practices and approaches to reduce the risks and occurrence of violence, intervention, access to justice, increase awareness, knowledge and understanding of the violence, rape and sexual abuse against people with disabilities, with an emphasis on people who have little or no functional speech. Each chapter, written by an expert on disability and/or law and peer reviewed, contains extensive information, references, resources, manuals for practice, stories and reports of people with disabilities themselves confronting the violence they experienced. They also provide whatever data and statistics there are about the prevalence, the perpetrators, and access to justice. The UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) has been ratified in over 135 countries to date. Three articles from the CRPD that apply directly to the topic of violence against people with disabilities and their access to the criminal justice system are focal throughout the book.