IF IT WAS YOU ?!?      A Public awarness raising campaign on the various abuses of human rights of persons with intellectual disabilities living in institutional settings in Croatia

December 3rd 2003, International Day of people with disabilities    

Campaign fliers

The main aim of the public campaign was raising public awareness to the fact that life in the institution is degrading and inhuman and that persons with intellectual disabilities have the same rights like other citizens and therefore should not be punished for having an impairment by being placed in an institution against their will.  The living conditions in the institutions of social welfare in Croatia are more than inadequate.  People residing in them have absolutely no privacy or possibility of choice, they loose their freedom (live according to a group regime), have no personal belongings (very often because there is also no cupboard or closet in the room they share with several more people).  Some people spend most of their life in the same institution, from early childhood on, others are institutionalized in late adulthood when their parents die and there is no one left to take care of them. 

For every person living in the institution there is another person with the same kind of impairment living in the community.  The difference is that the rights of the first person are not being respected as equally worthy.  We strongly believe that persons with intellectual disabilities can and should advocate their rights and the rights of those persons still living in institutional settings.  Human rights are something relevant for every individual.

In five cities in Croatia (Zagreb, Slavonski Brod, Bjelovar, Sibenik and Kastav) members of API and other supporters distributed fliers condemning life in institutional settings and advocating community based alternatives of care.

Other MHI supported campaigns