Disability Rights International

A push to integrate children with disabilities in Bulgaria, taking them out of squalid and often isolated state institutions, has not led to significant change in the way they are cared for, while the conditions they live in still fall short of those required under international law, Disability Rights International, DRI, said in a report published on Thursday.

More than three quarters of children living in state institutions in Serbia are children with disabilities, according to the latest United Nations Global Study on Children Deprived of Liberty.

At 77 per cent, Serbia ranks joint third with Hungary behind Turkmenistan and China in a total of 57 countries analysed.

Several disabled people's and human rights organisations, Inclusion Europe, the European Network on Independent Living, the Centre for Peace Studies Croatia, Human Rights House Zagreb, and Human Rights Watch, on Wednesday said in a letter to Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic that Croatia should stop confining children and adults in institutions.

This is the story of how a key political body within the Council of Europe sought to circumvent a United Nations Convention protecting the rights of people with disabilities. It's also about how one of its members, Bulgaria, is pushing back against the move.