From July 2003 to August 2007, MDRI has documented a broad array of human rights violations against people with disabilities, segregated from society and forced to live out their lives in institutions (all observations in this report are from December 2006 through August 2007 except as noted). Filthy conditions, contagious diseases, lack of medical care and rehabilitation, and a failure to provide oversight renders placement in a Serbian institution life-threatening.

This report documents a broad range of atrocious conditions for children with disabilities inside Romania’s institutions. While Romania has reduced its orphanage population and created foster care placements for many children, the reforms have left behind children with disabilities. This report documents serious human rights violations against children with disabilities in an institution for babies and in adult facilities.

Inhuman and degrading conditions of confinement are widespread throughout the Turkish mental health system. This report documents Turkey’s violations of the European Convention for the Prevention of Torture (ECPT), the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR), the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) and other internationally accepted human rights and disability rights standards.

This report documents the treatment of people with mental disabilities in internationally funded public mental health and social services in Kosovo. The report relies on international human rights conventions to which the United Nations Mission in Kosovo (UNMIK) and local government authorities in Kosovo have binding obligations, with particular reference to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR).

The Russian Federation has inherited from the Soviet Union an extensive institutional system of services and education for children that unnecessarily and improperly segregates them from society. The vast majority of children we observed within Russia's institutions and special schools could live, grow, develop, receive an education, and maintain family ties in a more integrated community environment.

The MDRI investigation was conducted during a series of site visits in 1995 and 1996 by a team of experts in disability law and psychiatry. The MDRI team spent several weeks visiting social care homes, psychiatric institutions, psychiatric wards of general hospitals, outpatient clinics, and one community-based rehabilitation program.