applies is defined as referring to the institution or facility, the kind of legal protection a child enjoys in the event of the use of age-atypical measures restricting freedom can depend on coincidences or purely internal organisational allocations. In institutions and facilities supervised by the competent authority for children and youth welfare and protection the legal protection proceedings of the Nursing and Residential Homes Residence Act do not apply. Children in other facilities that are subject to the supervision of the operator of facilities for persons with disabilities can indeed take advantage of this legal protection. Age-atypical restrictions of freedom represent interference with the right to personal freedom. This right enjoys particular protection in Austria and is constitutionally guaranteed. For a long time, there had been a legal grey zone in the area of institutions and facilities for persons with disabilities with regard to measures that restrict freedom and the protection of personal freedom. It was therefore the goal of the Nursing and Residential Homes Residence Act to eliminate this grey zone. For the NPM, this legal situation is not comprehensible, specifically, but not exclusively from the human rights perspective and is also objectively unjustified. From a human rights perspective, the protection of persons with disabilities may not vary, depending on the facility in which the persons are being cared for. In the opinion of the NPM, such a differentiation contradicts the norms of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child and of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, which is why the Human Rights Advisory Council addressed this problem. Differences in legal protection do not conform to human rights principles Therefore, from the perspective of the NPM, an amendment to the Nursing and Residential Homes Residence Act is urgently needed. There is a need for action on the legislative level, as, for example, in a boarding facility attached to a school in Lower Austria, it was only possible to remove all the 1.80-meter-high nursing cribs that could be locked from the outside with the cooperation of the representatives of the residents. The Nursing and Residential Homes Residence Act should be applicable to all institutions and facilities where children and adolescents are being cared for. It should also be discussed in the course of resolving an amendment whether the legal protection of the Nursing and Residential Homes Residence Act should not be extended to children and adolescents with the most serious physical disabilities. Amendment to the Nursing and Residential Homes Residence Act is necessary     Mentally disabled or mentally ill minors in institutions and facilities may not be subjected to any unjustified measures that restrict freedom. Legal protection must be available to everyone equally. Minors should enjoy the same protection as adults. Amendment to the Nursing and Residential Homes Residence Act is necessary. 72

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