Accomplishments & Awards Continued

• An abusive psychiatric facility was closed in Mexico. The Mexican government hired an MDRI adviser to create its first government-funded, community-based mental health programs;
  
  
• A $4 million program to support community integration for children with disabilities in Russia was established by the US Agency for International Development (USAID) as recommended by MDRI;
  
  
• New disability rights legislation in Hungary was adopted after the release of MDRI's report, including the formation of a human rights ombudsman system to protect people in institutions;
  
  
• Psychiatric survivors in Hungary formed a nationally recognized "disability council" to ensure the participation of people with mental disabilities in the formulation of new public policies;
  
  
• Activists brought human rights claims before international oversight agencies, including the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, and the UN Human Rights Committee;
  
  
• Amnesty International issued an Urgent Action in October 2001 regarding a state institution in Bulgaria where MDRI and Amnesty investigators reported that among other human rights abuses, women with mental disabilities were forced to live in cages;
  
  
• The Turkish government has now made it illegal to use electroshock therapy without anesthesia. MDRI has set up the first human rights organization in the country dedicated to rights protection of people with mental disabilities;
  
  
• MDRI filed a case in the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights to seek the emergency release of several persons detained in life threatening conditions in the Neuro-psychiatric Hospital in Paraguay;
  
  
• The government of Paraguay has agreed to restructure its entire mental health system;
  
  
• The government of Kosovo has pledged to close Shtime Institution (the largest in Kosovo) with our assistance;
  
  
• The largest “peer recovery” support group in Eastern Europe was formed;