Mairead McGuinness Fine Gael MEP

Mairead McGuinness Ireland East Fine Gael MEP who is seeking her party’s presidential nomination described as “deeply disturbing” the findings of two international reports she launched in Brussels today on the issue of long-term institutional care of people, including children and people with disabilities.

Launching ‘Forgotten Europeans-Forgotten Rights’ a study by the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) on the international and European human rights standards relevant to people in institutions and ‘At Home or in a Home? Formal care and adoption of children in Eastern Europe and Central Asia‘, a Unicef report, she said “a lot more needs to be done a lot more quickly. We cannot wait for generational or attitudinal change, we need rapid change.”

Among the key findings of the latter report are that despite reform efforts, more children are becoming separated from their families and the numbers in formal care are increasing, now standing at 626,000, across Central and Eastern Europe and the Commonwealth of Independent States. This figure is the highest in the world.

The OHCHR report highlights the fact that 1.2 million children and adults with disabilities are living in long-stay residential institutions across the EU and in Turkey. They are living in substandard conditions, including badly maintained buildings, lack of heating and unhygienic sanitation. They have been subject to poor treatment, including inadequate clothing and food, sometimes leading to malnutrition, physical and sexual abuse and few or no rehabilitative or therapeutic activities, as well as a failure to respect procedural safeguards, such as a review of involuntary placements.

Launching the reports McGuinness said that greater pressure is needed to accelerate progress on reform for “faceless and voiceless people“ in institutions. “I will be putting pressure on the Commission to ensure that EU funding is not being used to maintain inappropriate institutions,” she said.