Having a disability should never result in a person being denied freedom. Yet across Latin America, thousands of people with disabilities are still forcibly institutionalized, often from a young age, with little control over their lives. A new amendment to Peru’s General Law on Persons with Disabilities unfortunately exemplifies this problem.
On April 2, 2025, Peru’s Congress added article 29.2 to the law, which states: “The State promotes the creation of specialized care centers and temporary and permanent shelters for persons with disabilities.” The amendment ignores the principles of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD), which Peru is a party to.
In the years I’ve spent meeting people with disabilities in institutions across the region, I’ve encountered story after story like Mariana’s. Blind since childhood, Mariana was put in an institution in Brazil at age 12. By 18, she still did not know how to read, write, or use braille due to her limited access to education. Her life was entirely controlled by others.
Institutionalization is one of the most widespread forms of segregation and discrimination against people with disabilities throughout Latin America. Although reliable data is scarce, the patterns are clear. Many people with disabilities in institutions remain there for years—often until death—where their lives are strictly controlled, including when and what to eat, the activities they can engage in, and whom they are allowed to interact with. Many countries continue to publicly fund building or maintaining institutions, believing they are the only viable places for people with disabilities to live.
Peru has actually taken recent steps toward deinstitutionalization through a strategy adopted in February 2025 by its National Council for the Integration of Persons with Disabilities (CONADIS). Though the strategy remains in its early stages, the introduction of article 29.2 this month and its authorization of “specialized care centers and temporary and permanent shelters for persons with disabilities,” permanent residential institutions by different names, achieves the very opposite of deinstitutionalization.
People with disabilities in Peru often enter institutions as children, like Mariana did in Brazil, to leave only when they die, according to CONADIS. Peru’s President Dina Boluarte can and should prevent increased institutionalization by vetoing the new amendment and affirming Peru’s commitment to all peoples’ dignity, autonomy, and the right to be free, including to choose where to live.