For decades, disabled children and adults living in institutions worldwide have suffered abuse of all kinds – from deprivation and solitary confinement in miniature cells, to sexual abuse and forced sterilisation.

Now a charity which has documented this abuse for more than 20 years is bringing a landmark legal case against the Mexican government, with the intention of laying down a new line in international law.

Throughout their years of research, Disability Rights International (DRI) has found sickening abuse in donor, state-funded and private institutions for people with disabilities across the world. A three-year investigation in Ukraine revealed that children detained in institutions without “adequate government oversight” were at risk of being trafficked for sex, pornography, or organs. At a psychiatric asylum in Argentina in the early 2000s, DRI (then known as Mental Disability Rights International) documented patients locked naked in tiny isolation cells. When people with psychosocial disabilities are subjected to social and sensory isolation like this, it is classed as degrading treatment or torture, according to the UN special rapporteur on torture.

They’re not protecting the women from getting raped by sterilising them, they’re protecting them from getting pregnant Eric Rosenthal, executive director of DRI

The institutions that house children and adults in Mexico have been one of DRI’s principal focuses since 2000. Their first groundbreaking report documenting abuse in the Samuel Ramirez hospital in Mexico City contributed to the landmark 2006 UN convention on the rights of persons with disabilities.

In 2014, a two-year investigation into the state of facilities for people with disabilities in Mexico City found residents were sexually abused, locked in cages, left permanently in cribs, and overall detained in “dehumanising conditions”, as the charity described it. “People with disabilities have the right to stay in society and not be locked up,” said Eric Rosenthal, executive director of DRI. In Mexico he witnessed “effectively no community services; a total system of segregation”.

The case that DRI is now bringing centres on children and adults detained at Casa Esperanza institution in Mexico City. Casa Esperanza featured on a list compiled by Mexico City authorities of facilities for people with disabilities that were particularly abusive that was passed to DRI in May 2014 by an anonymous source.

In repeated visits to Casa Esperanza in 2014 and 2015 carried out by representatives from DRI, who were open about their intentions to investigate the facility, 37 people were found to be held in “dangerous, violent, degrading and unhygienic conditions”.

In one interview with the director of the institution in 2014, which is recorded on video, he states that the forced sterilisation of some of the women in the home is standard policy as a precautionary measure against pregnancy, in reference to the risk of sexual abuse (a resident told DRI that a repairman had raped her). “They’re not protecting them from getting raped, they’re protecting them from getting pregnant,” said Rosenthal.

Interviews conducted by DRI with patients at Casa Esperanza who were able to communicate disclosed harrowing tales of assault. Five women revealed they were being sexually abused by a relative of a senior staff member, and a workman.

Disability Rights International has documented the abuse of people in institutions for more than 20 years Photograph: Alamy Stock Photo

DRI met with the Mexico City System for Integral Family Development (DIF-DF) in June 2014 to make them aware of the abuses, including forced sterilisation and isolation, and later sent a formal letter with photographic evidence, but it was not until September 2015 that Casa Esperanza was closed.

In the timeline of events which DRI outlines in their legal petition, DIF-DF visited Casa Esperanza in January 2015 and witnessed the same abuses DRI had recorded. “The facility was known to be abusive and allowed to continue as such,” said Rosenthal.

Once Casa Esperanza was shut down by Mexico City authorities, many of the residents were moved to different facilities. The charity followed up with some of the young people after they left Casa Esperanza. “We know that at least two people have died [since moving from Casa Esperanza]; we know that one woman was systematically raped, and I read the testimonies from the rape she suffered in the new institution, and it was even worse,” said Priscila Rodríguez, DRI’s associate director.

The case which DRI is bringing against the Mexican government under international law seeks reparation for the residents who were detained in these conditions. It calls for Mexico to provide full community integration for not only the survivors of Casa Esperanza, but for all people with disabilities who are institutionalised. To do this, Mexico must provide housing and other support services for disabled people to live in the community. The Inter-American Court has granted financial reparations to victims of torture in some previous cases, so there may be a possibility of compensation.



An investigation into the state of facilities for people with disabilities in Mexico City found residents were sexually abused, locked in cages, and overall detained in “dehumanising conditions” Photograph: Sasa Stankovic/EPA

The charity claims the Mexican government had knowledge of the abuses taking place at the institution. They argue that the abuses constitute torture, contrary to Mexico’s obligations under international human rights law. Accordingly, in January this year DRI and the O’Neill Institute for National and Global Health Law filed a case at the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, and are calling for deinstitutionalisation across the country. They aim to get recognition under international law that disabled people have the right to live in the community. If the commission decides that they have a case, it will go before the Inter-American court. The government is legally bound to accept the court’s decision.



The Olmstead case was a historic breakthrough throughout the world and drove a lot of deinstitutionalisation in the US Professor Gerard Quinn, disability law specialist

The Mexico City authorities say that after learning about the matter in 2014, they “undertook various inter-institutional actions to address the issues... initiating supervision and follow-up work... A series of joint operations were carried out between the Human Rights Commission of Mexico City, DRI, and the DIF of Mexico City, aimed at protecting the rights of the disabled population that were in [Casa Esperanza], with the aim of taking them out of that home and placing them in the care of other social organisations that provide alternative care, follow up and accompaniment to persons with disabilities.”

They state that the state authorities took the necessary steps in order to make sure that the institution was closed down, and to this day continue to work on behalf of of the persons that were removed from [Casa Esperanza], “in order to guarantee the enjoyment and exercise of their human rights, as well as to promote the development of their autonomy. These are fundamental for the strengthening of the agenda of Persons with Disabilities deprived of family care, in which the main objective is to promote their inclusion in the community”.

“Survivors of Casa Esperanza committed no crime, yet they are serving a life sentence in Mexico’s mental health institutions,” says Rosenthal. “The case presents a new legal claim that has never been before established under international law; that is the idea of a right to community integration.”

It is based on the case of Olmstead v LC in 1999, which is seen as one of the most important civil rights cases for people with disabilities in the US. A lawsuit was filed on behalf of two women with mental health conditions and intellectual disabilities in Georgia for support to be provided in the community, after they had spent their lives continuously moving in and out of state psychiatric hospitals. The lawsuit went to the supreme court, which held that people with disabilities have a right to receive state-funded support and services in the community, rather than institutions.

“The Olmstead decision had crystal clarity in terms of inappropriate institutionalisation amounting to discrimination. It was a huge historic breakthrough throughout the world; it has had really huge impact, [and] it has been driving a lot of deinstitutionalisation in the US,” said Prof Gerard Quinn who specialises in disability law at NUI Galway, “[The Mexico case] has the potential for having an impact in Latin America if it goes further.”

“Historically, disability rights have been ignored,” said Rodríguez. “Segregation is a practice that’s been systematically used for people with disabilities, and it’s important to change that mindset. We are saying that to segregate a person on the basis of their disability is one of the most aggressive forms of discrimination.”

“[This] will be the first case about community integration in Latin America, and we are very keen to have that precedent established not only in Mexico, but in the whole continent,” Rodríguez said. “We do hope that similar action can take place somewhere else. For instance, the European Human Rights System and the Inter-American Human Rights system rely on each other for standard-setting, a case before the European Court can be used as an international standard before the Inter-American Court and vice-versa. This case could thus also be used as a standard in other human rights system, such as the European and also at the International level, such as before UN Committees.”

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