Defencelessly at the mercy: Residents often experience violence
Created: 05/16/2022Updated: 05/16/2022, 06:00
Around 200,000 people with disabilities live in special residential facilities.
© Sebastian Gollnow/dpa
Violence in special facilities: People with disabilities are often said to be at the mercy of attacks, largely unnoticed by the public.
Are calls for more precautions enough?
Berlin - abuse, scalding, humiliation - according to the federal government and human rights experts, cases of violence against people with disabilities often occur in the dark.
Overall, hundreds of thousands of people in special facilities rarely have the chance to assert their rights, according to the Federal Disability Commissioner Jürgen Dusel and the German Institute for Human Rights (DIMR) in Berlin.
"People in residential facilities for disabled people experience different forms of violence - including psychological pressure, physical and sexualized violence," said DIMR expert Britta Schlegel.
Dusel criticized that protection concepts often only existed on paper.
Since June 2021, facilities for people with disabilities have been obliged to take protective measures.
Various forms of violence
A research project that has been running since July 2021 assumes a “large scale from low-threshold to severe psychological, physical and sexualised violence in institutions” in Germany.
Among other things, cases of abuse, scalding and humiliation are listed.
Dusel and Schlegel issued recommendations for more protection against violence, in which they pointed out the "great importance" of this and other research.
The point is to first raise awareness of the grievances.
Experts assume a high number of unreported cases
Schlegel emphasized that there are no current surveys of the extent of the violence.
However, beyond the known cases, she assumed a high number of unreported cases.
Assaults and humiliation could come from employees of the facilities as well as from other residents.
"People living in institutions rarely seek legal protection themselves," explained Schlegel and Dusel.
"Living in dependent relationships and the lack of knowledge of one's own rights and complaints prevent this."
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Around 330,000 people with disabilities are employed in workshops.
Around 200,000 live in special housing facilities, and many of them work in workshops at the same time.
The DIMR and Commissioner Dusel welcomed the coalition plan to promote more binding measures to prevent violence.
At the same time, they pointed out that, from their point of view, demands for more precautions in the special facilities were not everything.
"On the way to an inclusive society, comprehensive protection against violence in institutions is only the first important step," they stated.
Gradually, special facilities would have to be completely dismantled.
dpa
