Submission to the United Nations Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (2017)

Between March 7-11, 2017, investigators from Disability Rights International (DRI) visited Guatemala. DRI visited Hogar Seguro Virgen de la Asunción (Hogar Seguro), a public institution where more than 700 children were detained. During the visit DRI interviewed the survivors of a fire that took place on March 7, 2017 and has killed more than three dozen girls (the number has been rising in recent days).

Behind the closed doors of Mexico City’s institutions for people with disabilities, atrocious abuses are taking place that amount to nothing less than torture. Children and adults are denied treatment and are left to languish covered in their own urine and feces in filthy dehumanizing conditions.

The present report is based on the results of a year-long study carried out by Disability Rights International (DRI) together with the Women’s Group of the Colectivo Chuhcan –the first organization in Mexico directed by persons with psychosocial disabilities.

For any criminal justice system to work effectively, it is essential to take into account the rights of persons with mental disabilities given that they are more likely than the rest of the population to be involved in criminal proceedings – either as defendants, victims or witnesses.During criminal proceedings, these persons with physical and mental disabilities face numerous obstacles to effective exercise of their right to justice.

Based on our observations from visiting the Federico Mora Hospital and from collecting dozens of testimonies from current and former staff, patients, and other sources in Guatemala, we have come to the conclusion that the Federico Mora Hospital is the most dangerous facility our investigators have witnessed anywhere in the Americas.

From August 2009 through September 2010, DRI and the CMDPDH investigated psychiatric institutions, orphanages, shelters, and other public facilities that house children and adults with disabilities. This report documents violations of the rights of people with disabilities under the new United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) and other human rights treaties ratified by Mexico.

Electric Shock and Long-Term Restraint in the United States on Children and Adults with Disabilities at the Judge Rotenberg Center.