Final Report & Recommendations: Addressing the situation of children with disabilities in residential care as part of the Ukraine response

On 7 July 2022, the Better Care Network (BCN) and Disability Rights International (DRI) organised an event with disability and child protection actors focused on the situation of children with disabilities in residential care in Ukraine (including those children who have been returned to families or evacuated from facilities since 24 February 2022).

Left Behind in the War: Dangers Facing Children with Disabilities In Ukraine’s Orphanages

In late April 2022, Disability Rights International (DRI) brought a team of people with disabilities and family activists, including medical and disability service experts, to visit Ukraine’s institutions for children with disabilities.  DRI visited three facilities for children aged six to adult, and one “baby” home for children from birth to age six.  DRI finds that Ukraine’s children with disabilities with the greatest support needs are living in atrocious conditions – entirely overlooked by major international relief agencies and receiving little support from abroad.  

Serbia’s Forgotten Children

This report, Forgotten Children of Serbia, is based on findings of investigations conducted from 2019 to the present by DRI and the Mental Disability Rights Initiative of Serbia (MDRI-S) and, focusing especially on children, shows that these human rights concerns have been permitted to continue. The Serbian government has been put on notice about the atrocious conditions, abuse, and torture taking place in its facilities through years of advocacy by DRI, MDRI-S, and other allies and has failed to take action or hold abusers accountable.

Call for submissions to UN working group on deinstitutionalization

On behalf of the United States International Council on Disabilities (USICD) and Disability Rights International (DRI), we are writing to let you know about a regional “consultation” being organized by the UN Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD Committee) to solicit input from people with disabilities and their allies on experiences and concerns related to the issue of deinstitutionalization.

Crimes Against Humanity: Decades of Violence and Abuse in Mexican Institutions for Children and Adults with Disabilities

Children and adults with disabilities throughout Mexico are confined to institutions, segregated from society, and exposed to these dangers – because of the country’s failure to create social supports that would allow people to lead a full life in the community. Mexico’s law strips people with disabilities of the right to make decisions about their own lives – leaving them unable to file complaints or demand accountability when they are abused.

Webinar October 26, 2020 - Crimes Against Humanity in Mexico

Join Disability Rights International at 1 PM EST on October 26 for a live event to launch our newest report, Crimes Against Humanity: Decades of Violence and Abuse in Mexican Institutions for Children and Adults with Disabilities, detailing the grave human rights violations which children and adults with disabilities are subjected to in Mexico's institutions, orphanages, group homes and other congregate care settings throughout the country.

Urgent appeal to the United Nations: Immediate protections for people exposed to COVID-19 inside Guatemala disability institution

Hundreds of people at the Federico Mora disability institution, exposed to staff infected with COVID-19, are locked into the facility, which has been sealed from outside access. Disability Rights International (DRI) calls for immediate government intervention to test detainees, provide care to those exposed, and immediately remove anyone who has not yet contracted the virus.