It is of utmost importance that everyone working to prevent torture, cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment around the globe integrate awareness of the rights of people with disabilities and strengthen their efforts to prevent such abuses against them.
Although the right to be free from torture and ill-treatment is one of the few rights which are of absolute and non-derogable nature, these grave human rights violations remain widespread in all parts of the world today. Persons with disabilities in psychiatric and social care institutions, psychiatric wards, emergency rooms of general hospitals, and other facilities where they may be deprived of their liberty are at heightened risk of abuses, these remaining invisible and carried out with impunity.
We share responsibility in protecting the rights of those who find themselves at heightened risk of being subject to torture and ill-treatment. As UN Special Rapporteur on torture and other forms of cruel, inhuman, degrading treatment or punishment and UN Special Rapporteur on Disability of the Commission for Social Development we are committed to ending torture and ill-treatment against people with disabilities. The issues need to be named, perpetrators need to be held accountable, and victims supported to seek legal redress and psychological and social rehabilitation.
We implore the global human rights movement to recognise the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) as a set of basic and authoritative state obligations. Since the CRPD entered into force in 2008, there is an emerging need for all torture prevention actors to revise their standards and practices. Let us recall that every person with disabilities has a right to respect for his or her physical and mental integrity on an equal basis with others. (Art 17 of CRPD).