DRI conducts litigation at the national and international level to enforce and expand the right of children and adults to live in the community with choices equal to others. Our cases seek immediate protections from neglect, denial of basic care, violence and trafficking and systemic changes in law and policies to address the root causes of segregation and abuse. See DRI's global docket of cases here.

On March 7, 2017, a group of girls, boys and teenagers protested the physical and sexual abuse, rape and trafficking that they were subjected to at the institution Hogar Seguro Virgen de la Asuncion (Virgen de la Asuncion), in Guatemala City, Guatemala. Virgen de la Asuncion was a public institution where up to 800 children were detained prior to these protests. The authorities of Virgen de la Asuncion called on the National Police to repress the protests. As a punishment, the girls who had protested were beaten and locked up in a tiny auditorium with a capacity for 26 people standing, without a bathroom and access to water, where they were left to spend the night.

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.

Entre el 7 y 11 de marzo de 2017, investigadores de Disability Rights International (DRI) viajaron a Guatemala. Durante este viaje visitamos a los sobrevivientes del Hogar Seguro Virgen de la Asunción (Hogar Seguro), una institución pública en Guatemala que albergaba a más de 700 niños y en la cual se produjo el incendio el pasado 8 de marzo que ha cobrado la vida de más de 30 niñas (el número ha seguido aumentando en los últimos días).

A product of a three-year investigation by Disability Rights International (DRI) into the egregious human rights violations perpetrated against nearly 100,000 children – with and without disabilities – who are left to grow up segregated from society in orphanages, psychiatric facilities, residential boarding schools, and other institutions. For children with disabilities, orphanages are a gateway to lifelong institutionalization in abusive adult facilities.