From the New York Times:

Human rights groups report that many people with disabilities are being held against their will in Central and Eastern Europe, stripped of the most basic rights by legal guardianship laws even when they may be capable of looking after themselves.

Advocates say it is fairly easy for relatives to convince a judge to place a person under guardianship simply because they want control over assets.

A study of guardianship in eight former Communist countries completed last year by the Mental Disability Advocacy Center in Budapest found jaillike regimens for patients with a wide range of mental disabilities, with one million adults in the region subject to “significant, arbitrary and automatic” violations of their human rights.

… Often, guardians use their powers to send their wards to large state institutions forever.

“We call it civil death,” said Victoria Lee, a lawyer at the advocacy center. “Once you are under guardianship, that’s it. You basically become a nonperson. These guardianship systems have no safeguards.”

This entry was posted on Monday, January 5th, 2009 at 11:42 pm and is filed under human rights, institutionalization, intellectual/developmental disabilities, international. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.