Millions Of People Are Chained Up & Shackled For Mental Health Issues Worldwide & This Must End
According to Human Rights Watch, hundreds of thousands of men, women and children with mental health conditions are living chained up in roughly 60 countries.
As awareness around mental well-being grows across the world and the illness is not seen as a taboo, there still is a huge section of the world where mental health is not given due importance.
According to Human Rights Watch, hundreds of thousands of men, women and children with mental health conditions are living chained up in roughly 60 countries.
Without mental health support or awareness, families or institutions often shackle people against their will, leaving them eating, sleeping, urinating and defecating in one small space, the rights watchdog said in a report.
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In the run-up to World Mental Health Day on Oct. 10, Human Rights Watch¡¯s report documents through almost 800 interviews how people with psychosocial disabilities in countries like China, Nigeria and Mexico can live shackled for years ¨C chained to trees, locked in cages, imprisoned in animal sheds.
Practice of shackling prevalent
¡°We have found the practice of shackling across religions, social strata, economic classes, cultures and ethnic groups ¨C it¡¯s a practice that is found around the world,¡± Kriti Sharma, senior disability rights researcher at Human Rights Watch told Reuters.
The belief in many countries ¡°is that people with mental health conditions are bewitched, or possessed or have sinned, and as a result, they have a condition,¡± she said.
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Last year, Nigerian authorities¡¯ raids on Islamic rehabilitation centres for drugs and behavioural issues made global headlines after boys and men told of being shackled, kept naked, beaten and sexually abused.
But around the world, in state-run and private centres and traditional and religious healing institutions, handlers deny people food, force medications and herbal remedies on them, and mete out physical and sexual violence, Human Rights Watch observed.
Families usually shackle their loved ones fearing that they may run away or inflict harm on others.
