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.

Bringing Vietnam’s Laws into Compliance with the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities

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.

Documents human rights violations perpetrated against approximately 25,000 people detained in Argentina’s psychiatric institutions. More than 80 percent of these people are detained for more than a year— and many are detained for life. Two-thirds of all psychiatric beds are part of the public health system.

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.

MDRI and APRODEH find a number of serious human rights violations against people with mental disabilities, including: inhuman and degrading treatment in institutions; discrimination in the provision of health and social services; failure to ensure informed consent; and violations of the right to community integration, among others.

Individuals with disabilities are subject to a broad pattern of discrimination and segregation in almost every part of the world. In most countries, people with disabilities and their families are socially stigmatized, politically marginalized, and economically disadvantaged.