Russia
We are seeking urgent funding to maintain our work in Russia. European Union funding ended in February 2008 and we need to continue our work. Please donate to MDAC!
MDAC’s work focuses on St. Petersburg, where an estimated 37,000 children and adults with disabilities are forced to live in institutions and in isolation from family and society.
The Russian psychiatric system refuses to allow public scrutiny and to consider developments in psychiatric care. Despite this difficult environment, MDAC helps victims of human rights abuses seek remedies in Russian and international courts. Our cases include guardianship abuses, inhuman and degrading treatment and punishment, and discrimination in employment.
Mr S’s case is typical. MDAC’s assistance in his case has the potential to help many thousands of people in Russia – and in the wider Europe – in similar situations.
Mr. S. was deprived of legal capacity in December 2004, by a St. Petersburg court. He however, knew nothing about, and did not participate in, the court process. He only became aware of this judgment by accident in November 2005 at which time the 10-day time limitation period for appealing the court decision had long expired. A few days later he was detained in a psychiatric hospital. During his six-month detention he repeatedly asked for a visit from his attorney, MDAC’s legal monitor. His requests and similar requests of his attorney were repeatedly rejected. During his detention in the hospital, Mr S was forced to receive high doses of psychiatric medication. The dosage of his medication was considerably increased immediately after the Russian authorities were informed about his application to the European Court of Human Rights. While in the hospital he continued to be kept incommunicado apart from visits by his mother/guardian and denied recreation. In March 2008 the European Court of Human Rights found violations of the Convention. You can read an information bulletin about this case here.
We are encouraging the meeting of, and discussions on mental health and human rights between, different people and professionals involved in the psychiatric system. This includes users of mental health services, psychiatrists, guardianship officials and other experts. We are also developing peer advocacy services inside closed institutions, a service that is rare in Russia. To aid this process, we are training law students from Herzen University and users of psychiatric services to provide basic level advice in such settings.
Psychiatry in Russia has a chequered history, with the Soviet Psychiatric Association having been dismissed from the World Psychiatric Association. The Soviet medical approach to mental illness still prevails, as does social stigma against those labelled with a diagnosis of a mental illness. Added to this is the difficulty in accessing institutions which means that what occurs behind their closed doors remains hidden.
National statistics of institutionalised people in Russia are not available. We estimate however that many hundreds of thousands of people with disabilities are institutionalised for life. Mental health and intellectual disability issues are low priority for legislators, and increasingly restrictive laws on the activities of non-governmental organisations are stifling civil society. Added to this, judges are highly deferential to psychiatrists, which means that decisions on detention and legal capacity are frequently based on poorly reasoned psychiatric opinions. The bureaucracy faced by people with disabilities results directly in their needs being unrecognised and therefore unmet.
Russia has not yet signed or ratified the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. Campaign for ratification!
Please help us continue our work in Russia by donating.
