In 2022 the United Nations Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities released their guidelines on Closing Institutions. 

For more information on the Committee read our explainer To read more about what an institution is click here.

The Committee’s guidelines were made by people with disabilities. The guidelines respond to the experiences of violence, abuse, and neglect that people around the world who have been institutionalisation shared during the process of making the guidelines.

The Committee’s guidelines explain what governments must do to make sure:

  • Institutions are closed;
  • People are not institutionalised during emergencies like wars, or pandemics;
  • People with disabilities are supported and included in their communities;  
  • Everyone has good lives in the community.

I have the freedoms which I didn’t have in the institutions. I made friends. I go to second hand shops. I have 3 jobs and can earn money. I can go out whenever and wherever I want

Elisabeta Moldova – Ceva De Spus

Closing Institutions is very important to our members, especially our self-advocate members. In 2021 we collected the work self-advocacy organisations in our network are doing on closing institutions in our self-advocate report on Closing Institutions. Click here to read the report.

To make sure that the Committee’s guidelines are easy for everyone to understand and use, Inclusion International brought together a group of survivors of institutions and expert self-advocates to create an accessible version of the guidelines. The group came from members in each region; Chosen Power: People First Hong Kong, People First Canada, the Alexandria Self-Advocacy Resource Centre, KAIH and Ceva De Spus a member of Inclusion Europe.

The self-advocates members of the video design group – Simon, Leta, Heba, Evaline and Eli

The group met regularly over 6 months to design a series of animated videos that explain the guidelines. The group decided that videos would be the easiest way for self-advocates and others to understand, use and share the guidelines. The group collected stories and interviews and created a playlist of videos to share the guidelines and  the experiences of survivors.

The guideline videos and playlist will be available in English and Spanish and are available on YouTube.

You can download the plain language document version of the video transcript by clicking here.

If you are interested in translating the document or videos get it touch with Ailis.