Draft Article 12
FREEDOM FROM VIOLENCE AND ABUSE

• States Parties recognise that persons with disabilities are at greater risk, both within and outside the home, of violence, injury or abuse, neglect or negligent treatment, maltreatment or exploitation, including sexual exploitation and abuse. States Parties shall, therefore, take all appropriate legislative, administrative, social, educational and other measures to protect persons with disabilities, both within and outside the home, from all forms of violence, injury or abuse, neglect or negligent treatment, maltreatment or exploitation, including sexual exploitation and abuse.
• Such measures should prohibit, and protect persons with disabilities from, forced interventions or forced institutionalisation aimed at correcting, improving, or alleviating any actual or perceived impairment, and abduction.
• States Parties shall also take all appropriate measures to prevent violence, injury or abuse, neglect or negligent treatment, maltreatment or exploitation, including sexual exploitation and abuse, by ensuring, inter alia, support for persons with disabilities and their families, including the provision of information.
• States Parties shall ensure that all facilities and programmes, both public and private, where persons with disabilities are placed together, separate from others, are effectively monitored to prevent the occurrence of violence, injury or abuse, neglect or negligent treatment, maltreatment or exploitation, including sexual exploitation and abuse.
• Where persons with disabilities are the victim of any form of violence, injury or abuse, neglect or negligent treatment, maltreatment or exploitation, including sexual exploitation and abuse, States Parties shall take all appropriate measures³⁹ to promote their physical and psychological recovery and social reintegration.
• States Parties shall ensure the identification, reporting, referral, investigation, treatment and follow-up of instances of violence and abuse, and the provision of protection services and, as appropriate, judicial involvement.

Footnotes:

39: Some Working Group members suggested that this paragraph should include an explicit provision of legal remedies.

Relevant references:

International human rights conventions and legal instruments

Disability-specific instruments

Jurisprudence of human rights treaty bodies

Summary of discussions at the Working Group

Comments on the draft text

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