Following MDRI report, UN Committee Calls on Serbia to End “Torture or Ill-Treatment”
MDRI Promises Continued Monitoring
July 17, 2008 - As a result of the public exposure triggered by Mental Disability Rights International’s widely-publicized report, “Torment not Treatment: Serbia’s Segregation and Abuse of Children and Adults with Disabilities,” the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child (CRC) issued a recommendation to the Serbian government to end practices of “torture or ill-treatment” and to provide “full compensation and rehabilitation” for victims of such abuse. The CRC expressed concern about children subject to “severe long-term restraint and seclusion” and agreed with MDRI’s report that such practices “could amount to ill-treatment or even torture.”
The CRC expressed concern about large numbers of children with disabilities who remain in Serbia’s institutions. The Committee, which monitors the implementation of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, reviewed MDRI’s report and video footage, and asked for our assessment of Serbia’s progress in implementing human rights protections outlined under the Convention. Click here to read the CRC report.
As “a result of the dialogue” created by MDRI’s report, according to UNICEF, the Serbian Ministry of Labour and Social Welfare signed an agreement to a “radical downsizing or closure of some residential institutions [and] development of multifaceted support to families of children with severe disabilities.”
“We are encouraged by Serbia’s promise of reform,” said MDRI Executive Director Eric Rosenthal, “but immediate action is needed to end torture in institutions. We will continue to monitor conditions in Serbia to ensure that the government fulfills its promises and implements the new recommendations of the CRC.”
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