That all disabled people have the right to live in the community is now made clear in the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (UNCRPD). Article 19, entitled ‘living independently and being included in the community’ recognizes:

‘…the equal right of all persons with disabilities to live in the community, with choices equal to others and shall take effective and appropriate measures to facilitate full enjoyment by persons with disabilities of this right and their full inclusion and participation in the community’.

People with disabilities have the ”opportunity to choose their place of residence and where and with whom they live”. This means that the segregation of people with disabilities in long-stay institutions is in itself a human rights abuse.

People with disabilities have access to a range of community support services, “including personal assistance necessary to support living and inclusion in the community, and to prevent isolation or segregation from the community”. This means that States must develop services that are available in the community, thereby putting an end to the institutionalisation of people with disabilities and enabling those who have been placed in institutions to return to their communities.

Community services and facilities for the general population are “available on an equal basis to persons with disabilities and are responsive to their needs”. This means that mainstream services such as housing, meals-on-wheels, social services, and child support are available to, and meet the needs of, people with disabilities.

One of the most significant human rights violations facing many people with mental health problems and/or intellectual disabilities across the world is that often they are segregated in long-stay institutions such as psychiatric facilities, social care institutions and orphanages. In these places of detention the conditions are often of an unacceptably poor quality, the detainees are vulnerable to neglect as well as physical, sexual and psychological abuse. Often there are no mechanisms for people to appeal to a court to release them. In a recent study of 25 countries in Europe alone it is estimated that there are at least 1.2 million disabled people in institutions – of those with a reported diagnosis the two largest groups of residents are those with mental health problems and those with intellectual disabilities (Mansell J, Knapp M, Beadle-Brown J and Beecham J (2007) Deinstitutionalisation and community living – outcomes and costs: report of a European Study. Volume 2: Main Report. Canterbury: Tizard Centre, University of Kent, p 2. http://www.ozida.gov.tr/ web_english/ actual/ volume2.pdf

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