Restraints on a bed in Lopaca Psychiatric Hospital. Emina Cerimovic/Human Rights Watch 2014. Used with permission of author.“I want to leave but I can’t,” Ana told me. “I have a guardian. I told my sister and my doctor [that I want to leave this place], but my guardian has a say.”
Ana is among 18,000 people with intellectual or psychosocial disabilities placed under guardianship in Croatia, and stripped of their legal capacity – the right to make basic decisions - to marry and form a family, to consent to medical treatment, or to sign an employment contract. A significant majority have been placed under full guardianship, under which guardians – often nominated by the state – make all decisions for them.
But that’s about to change.
