Protecting persons with disabilities from violence in institutions
Challenges and success factors
Institutional cultures still expose persons with disabilities to violence and neglect. Progress comes through CRPD-aligned laws, independent monitoring and meaningful participation. Accountability, awareness and cooperation remain key to lasting protection.
Challenges and gaps
- Persistent institutional culture and medical model of disability
- Insufficient legal safeguards and weak enforcement.
- Fragmented monitoring systems, no harmonised standards.
- Limited access to justice: fear of retaliation, inaccessible complaints systems, low awareness of rights.
- Underfunding and understaffing; lack of training and accountability.
- Resistance to deinstitutionalisation and a lack of community alternatives.
Success factors
- CRPD-aligned laws and clear accountability frameworks.
- Regular, unannounced independent monitoring.
- Cooperation between authorities, service providers and DPOs.
- Professional training and peer-led awareness.
- Empowerment and self-advocacy as part of accountability.
- Inclusive, rights-based standards and data-driven oversight.
Taking action
Change begins by strengthening protection, prevention and access to justice. Training, data and user-led monitoring can turn policy into practice, while accessible complaint systems and inclusive procedures would empower people to speak up.
Strengthening protection
- Introduce minimum protection standards and sanctions for violence.
- Mainstream disability in all legislation and policies.
- Ensure procedural accommodations and accessible complaint systems.
- Involve persons with disabilities in decision-making.
- Guarantee proper vetting and training of staff.
Investing in prevention and monitoring
- Train staff and inspectors to recognise and prevent abuse.
- Empower self-advocates and support user-led monitoring.
- Ensure independent oversight bodies are well-resourced and empowered to act.
- Promote data collection and feedback loops to drive policy change.
- Embed human dignity in monitoring standards.
Strengthening response and access to justice
- Change institutional culture and medical model approaches to disability.
- Revise fragmented monitoring systems and ensure harmonised standards.
- Ensure access to justice, address risks of retaliation and improve awareness of rights.
- Ensure sufficient allocation of funding and address understaffing.
Next steps and ways forward
Sustained collaboration is essential. FRA can guide and connect partners, while national actors embed self-advocacy, improve training and coordinate monitoring, to turn commitment into rights-based protection.
What FRA can do
- Provide guidance to support harmonisation of standards.
- Facilitate peer-learning and cross-border exchange on monitoring and prevention.
- Use convening power to bring national actors together.
- Promote accessible communication.
- Advocate for CRPD compliance in EU funding and policy frameworks.
What national actors can do
- Align laws, policies and practice with CRPD obligations
- Build stable self-advocacy structures with legal mandates.
- Ensure continuous training and supervision of staff.
- Map and coordinate all actors to avoid protection gaps.
- Integrate monitoring data into policy and funding decisions.
- Engage communities to shift attitudes and support inclusion.
Prevention, protection and response must go hand in hand, so every person with a disability can live in safety, dignity and equality