I have been involved in he project created by the Centre for Legal Resources who pays visits in the psychiatry hospitals and youth centres of mental disabilities. If the specialized members were asked to write reports upon what they found at each location, I had to document photographically what happens inside these centres in Romania.  Over 25,000 children and adults with mental health problems/intellectual disabilities are in residential centres and psychiatry hospitals in Romania, thus falling under the international legal definition of „deprived of liberty”.

Civil society has raised serious concerns as to the inhumane treatment to which some of these persons are being submitted in some of the centres. The Romanian state has failed to implement a National Preventive Mechanism (NPM) to cover such institutions, while civil society, with the exception of the CLR, does not undertake unannounced monitoring visits. The possibility of the patients themselves to complain is almost non-existent, also due to legal gaps. The project “The death camps next to you” aims to develop an NPM, support its adoption with the Partner – Rogalski Damaschin also by sensitizing the large public and pilot the NPM implementation through 15 unannounced monitoring visits in such institutions. The visits would be made by 9 members of the specialized civil society but also the target group (former users of mental health services) trained within the project.

In order to help, take a look, read further and sign the petition to convince the Romanian State not to delay the establishment Mechanism of National Preventive. In this manner you help over 24 thousand young people to have a better life: http://www.petitieonline.com/sunt_singur_pe_lume_cine_ma_apara