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Wednesday, November 14, 2007

MDRI accuses Serbia of abusing mentally disabled children and adults

A report by the US based group Mental Disability Rights International outlines horrific abuses against institutionalized children and adults in Serbia after a four year study.

""Torment not Treatment: Serbia's Segregation and Abuse of Children and Adults with Disabilities" describes children and adults tied to beds or never allowed to leave their cribs - some for years at a time. In addition, filthy conditions, contagious diseases, lack of medical care, rehabilitation and judicial oversight renders placement in a Serbian institution life threatening for both children and adults."
-via Mental Disability Rights Int'l site

According to Fox News,

"Serbia is not alone in mistreating the mentally handicapped, the group said. Mental Disability Rights International has released similar reports on facilities in Romania, Hungary, Mexico, Peru, Russia, Turkey, Uruguay, Argentina and Serbia's province of Kosovo.
...
Some children and adults with disabilities never leave their beds or cribs and some are tied down for "a lifetime" to keep them from harming themselves, it said. The report said the most extreme human rights violations "are tantamount to torture."

"They eat, they go to bathroom and die in those cribs," Laurie Ahern, MDRI's investigator, said as the group showed a graphic video of the patients and poor conditions in Serbia's mental institutions." -via Foxnews.com

One boy with Down Syndrome was reportedly kept in a crib for 11 years.

The rest of the article is available at http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,311726,00.html

TIME magazine also covers the story in an article at http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1683763,00.html

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