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Support of the International Children with Disabilities Protection Act

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This bill represents everything we’ve been working on for over two decades. All children — especially children with disabilities — need our support to live and grow up in a loving family. And they need protection against being placed in orphanages or other institutions.

—   Laurie Ahern, President, Disability Rights International

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Bipartisan Senators Introduce International Children with Disabilities Protection Act in US Congress

News Article

This bill represents everything we’ve been working on for over two decades. All children — especially children with disabilities — need our support to live and grow up in a loving family. And they need protection against being placed in orphanages or other institutions.

—   Laurie Ahern, President, Disability Rights International

International Children with Disabilities Protection Act

International Children with Disabilities Protection Act ; S.4982 — 117th Congress (2021-2022)

Reports and Publications

WASHINGTON – Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Bob Menendez (D-N.J.) and Senator Jerry Moran (R-Kan.) today were joined by ten of their Senate colleagues in introducing the International Children with Disabilities Protection Act, new legislation to bolster U.S. support for children with disabilities, helping improve the capacity of local disabilities rights organizations and families of children with disabilities around the world to advocate for necessary reforms.
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Legal Analysis

Residential Care Controversy: The Promise of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities to Protect All Children

Reports and Publications

Conflicting interpretations of the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) and Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) send mixed messages on the safety and legitimacy of residential care, resulting in the replacement of large institutions with smaller ones often called ‘residential care’ or ‘group homes.’ This article demonstrates how the family inclusion mandate of General Comment No. 5 is rooted in the ‘human rights model of disability,’ fundamental to equal protection under the CRPD for all children with actual or perceived disabilities. The article proposes solutions to ensure full implementation of both the CRC and CRPD.
Call to Action

Call to action: Protect the right to family life & prevent institutionalization for all children

Reports and Publications

This call to action seeks to contribute to a range of efforts worldwide to promote consistent interpretation and enforcement of international human rights law in respect of children with disabilities, including the activities of the committees mentioned and other stakeholders and in particular the preparations for a Day of General Discussion on Children’s Rights and Alternative Care scheduled to take place in September 2021 under the auspices of the Committee on the Rights the Child.
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No Way Home: The Exploitation and Abuse of Children in Ukraine’s Orphanages

Reports and Publications

A product of a three-year investigation by Disability Rights International (DRI) into the egregious human rights violations perpetrated against nearly 100,000 children – with and without disabilities – who are left to grow up segregated from society in orphanages, psychiatric facilities, residential boarding schools, and other institutions. For children with disabilities, orphanages are a gateway to lifelong institutionalization in abusive adult facilities.
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