DRI Speaks Out Against Institutionalization of Children at First Global Ministerial Conference on Violence Against Children

DRI’s Associate Director, Priscila Rodríguez, spoke at the First Global Ministerial Conference on Violence Against Children on how institutionalization of children is a form of violence and it needs to stop. Children belong in families and governments have the obligations to support them to guarantee their right to grow up in a family.

Watch a recording of the event (in Spanish) here

Online launch of the COVID-19 Disability Rights Monitor Global Report

On 22 October 2020, Validity Foundation, the European Network on Independent Living, Disability Rights International, the Centre for Human Rights at the University of Pretoria, the International Disability Alliance, the International Disability and Development Consortium, and the Disability Rights Fund/Disability Rights Advocacy Fund will launch the COVID-19 Disability Rights Monitor Global Report.

October 9 - DRI holds hearing at Inter-American Commission on Human Rights

Disability Rights International, the Rapporteur of the UN Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities and disability and human rights organizations from Argentina, Guatemala and Peru will hold a public hearing before the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights on the urgent need to guarantee the right to community integration for persons with disabilities in the continent, in the context of the pandemic.

COVID-19 Disability Rights Monitor (DRM) calls for an end to police violence and abuse against persons with disabilities and their family members

The COVID-19 Disability Rights Monitor Coordinating Group express their alarm about increasing police violence against persons with disabilities in the context of the pandemic, and are calling on governments around the world to take urgent steps to prevent acts of brutality.

Safety through Inclusion: The Case for Emergency Deinstitutionalization - webinar series

People with disabilities, international human rights authorities, and activists discuss: Immediate threats to the health and life of children and adults in institutions due to COVID-19; Emergency protections against irreparable harm through international human rights systems; How to protect people with disabilities through community inclusion and emergency deinstitutionalization; The case for an international commission to protect people with disabilities in institutions through inclusion and emergency deinstitutionalization.

Urgent Appeal to UN Special Rapporteur on Disability

Disability Rights International and the Colectivo Vida Independiente de Guatemala appeal to request immediate life-saving protections for people detained at the National Mental Health facility “Federico Mora” (Federico Mora) in Guatemala City, Guatemala. People with disabilities detained at the “Federico Mora” face an imminent risk of sickness and death as a result of the authorities’ reckless exposure of detainees to the spread of the virus COVID-19, the failure to provide medical care, and their continued unlawful and unnecessary detention in the facility.