Maldives - Compliance with the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities - Death Penalty - July 2025
Country: Maldives, The
Partners: World Coalition Against the Death Penalty
Issues: Death Penalty
Mechanism: UN Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities
Report Type: Shadow/Parallel Report
This report addresses Maldives’ compliance with its international human rights obligations regarding the death penalty for persons with disabilities.
Despite maintaining an informal moratorium on executions, Maldives continues to impose death sentences, including on individuals with psychosocial and intellectual disabilities, contrary to international human rights standards t. In its response to the Committee’s List of Issues Prior to Reporting, Maldives reaffirmed its informal moratorium on executions but failed to provide information on any measures to ensure that persons with disabilities have access to justice and to fair trials and that reasonable accommodation is provided o on any legislative reforms to prohibit the death penalty.
Women who are survivors of protracted domestic violence face repeated barriers to accessing justice, and when those women have a disability and then come into conflict with the law, the criminal legal system places them at greater risk of being sentenced to death.
People with disabilities who are on death row in Maldives also face harsh and degrading conditions. Many are held in overcrowded, unsanitary facilities with little or no access to appropriate support or accommodations, rehabilitation, or intellectual activity. International observers report that these people face isolation, lack of timely medical intervention, and the complete absence of mental health professionals.
Maldives’ failure to remedy detention conditions is compounded by the lack of a comprehensive national strategy for services for people with disabilities in prisons. Maldives’ current Strategic Action Plan acknowledges system-wide deficiencies in mental health care but omits any meaningful focus on prison-based services or the particular needs of persons with psychosocial or intellectual disabilities who are incarcerated.
To address these urgent concerns, this alternative report urges the Government of Maldives
to abolish the death penalty and in the interim to establish a moratorium on new death
sentences, including on individuals with autism or psychosocial or intellectual disabilities,
to ensure that any criminal proceedings are compatible with the International Principles
and Guidelines on Access to Justice for Persons with Disabilities, to codify the right to
legal counsel at all stages of criminal legal proceedings, to improve access to in-prison
services for people with disabilities, to prohibit solitary confinement for individuals with
psychosocial disabilities, and to develop a funded national prison disability support
services strategy. These steps are essential to bring Maldivian law and practice into
alignment with international human rights standard.
