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Help Educate Children With Disabilities In Ghana

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Help Educate Children With Disabilities In Ghana

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Help educate children with disabilities in Ghana on GlobalGiving

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FHI is assisting the education of 550 needy disabled children in five institutions in the Southern sector of Ghana by providing for their educational materials to allow free education for the disabled

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Belen / Mentally ill patients in Ghana chained up for months: group

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Belen / Mentally ill patients in Ghana chained up for months: group

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ACCRA, Ghana - Mentally ill patients suffer from severe abuse at psychiatric hospitals and so-called healing centers in Ghana, with many chained to trees and even denied water, a human rights group said Tuesday.

Some 1,000 residents live in squalid, overcrowded quarters in Ghana's three psychiatric hospitals, according to Human Rights Watch. Patients face physical and verbal abuse, and some are given electroshock therapy without their consent, said the group's report.

The abuse is even worse in healing centers known as "prayer camps," which lack government oversight, it said.

Thousands of mentally disabled people in the West African nation are sent to the camps, usually by their family members to be "cured" by self-proclaimed prophets through miracles, prayer and fasting. In most prayer camps, residents are only allowed to leave when the prophet deems them healed.

At the Mount Horeb Prayer Camp earlier this year, about 120 of the 135 residents there were chained either to trees or to the walls inside cell-like rooms 24 hours a day, sometimes for months at a time, Human Rights Watch said. Most of the chains measured only two yards (meters) long.

"People had to bathe, defecate, urinate, change sanitary towels, eat, and sleep on the spot where they were chained," the group reported.

Medi Ssengooba, Finberg fellow at Human Rights Watch and one of the report's authors, urged Ghana's government to end abuses against people with mental disabilities.

"The conditions in which many people with mental disabilities live in Ghana are inhuman and degrading," Ssengooba said.

Ssengooba said researchers were disappointed to find the level of human rights abuse against the mentally ill in Ghana, which is one of the most progressive countries in Africa in terms of good governance and leadership.

Ghana's 2012 Mental Health Act went into effect in June and allows people with disabilities to challenge their detention in psychiatric hospitals. But the law does not apply to the prayer camps operating outside of government control. Many families send their mentally ill family members to prayer camps because there are very few mental health providers in Ghana and almost all of them are concentrated near Accra, the capital.

Besides the three psychiatric institutions around Accra, Ssengooba said there are only four private facilities in the country and they are expensive. And in many rural areas, people equate mental illness with demonic possession, and only think there is a spiritual cure, Ssengooba said.

Yet many mentally ill people face bondage, near starvation, and an inability to challenge their confinement at the camps.

One man with a mental disability at Mount Horeb Prayer Camp told Human Rights Watch he was chained for one year without any treatment. He said: "I want to go home, but they don't discharge me and they don't give me any reason."

Doris Appiah, the treasurer of the Mental Health Society of Ghana, said advocates aren't asking the government to close the camps but instead to monitor them.

Appiah, 57, was a medical student in her early 20s when she was committed to a mental hospital with severe depression. After escaping from the hospital, her family put her in a prayer camp near the town of Kumasi, north of Accra, hoping for a quick fix.

She stayed in prayer camps for five years, and was tied to a tree with rope. She is now an advocate for mentally ill people in Ghana.

"People are sick and they are not blamed for being sick, but you are mentally ill and it's your fault. And we hear it over and over again. People say mentally ill people are a liability and we are a menace to society," she said. "When you have mental illness you are considered sub-human, and that is the truth. You are carried places and things are done to you."

She said minimum standards at prayer camps need to be set by the government, and people in Ghana need to be educated about the causes of mental illness.

"Whether you are in chains or not, being mentally ill is like being incarcerated," Appiah said.
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Mentally ill patients in Ghana chained up for months: group

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ACCRA, Ghana - Mentally ill patients suffer from severe abuse at psychiatric hospitals and so-called healing centers in Ghana, with many chained to trees and even denied water, a human rights group said Tuesday. Some 1,000 residents live in squalid, overcrowded quarters in Ghana's three psychiatric hospitals, according to Human Rights Watch.

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Yareli/Ghana: People With Mental Disabilities Face Serious Abuse

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Yareli/Ghana: People With Mental Disabilities Face Serious Abuse

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People with mental disabilities suffer severe abuses in psychiatric institutions and spiritual healing centers in Ghana

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People with mental disabilities suffer severe abuses in psychiatric institutions and spiritual healing centers in Ghana, Human Rights Watch said in a report released today. The Ghanaian government has done little to combat such abuse or to ensure that these people can live in the community, as is their right under international law.

© 2011 Shantha Rau Barriga/Human Rights Watch

The 84-page report, "'Like a Death Sentence': Abuses against Persons with Mental Disabilities in Ghana," describes how thousands of people with mental disabilities are forced to live in these institutions, often against their will and with little possibility of challenging their confinement. In psychiatric hospitals, people with mental disabilities face overcrowding and unsanitary conditions. In some of the spiritual healing centers, popularly known as prayer camps, they are often chained to trees, frequently in the baking sun, and forced to fast for weeks as part of a "healing process," while being denied access to medications.

The report also highlights the challenges of people with mental disabilities who live in the community, who face stigma and discrimination and often lack adequate shelter, food, and healthcare.

"The government needs to take immediate steps to end abuses against people with mental disabilities in institutions, prayer camps, and the community," said Medi Ssengooba, Finberg fellow at Human Rights Watch. "The conditions in which many people with mental disabilities live in Ghana are inhuman and degrading."

The report is based on more than 170 interviews with people with mental disabilities in the country's three public psychiatric hospitals, and in eight prayer camps and the community; family members; healthcare providers; administrators and staff of prayer camps; government officials; and staff members of both local and international organizations working in Ghana.

The World Health Organization estimates that close to 3 million Ghanaians live with mental disabilities and 600,000 of these have very severe mental conditions.

Ghana's three public psychiatric hospitals - in Accra, Pantang, and Ankaful - house an estimated 1,000 people with mental disabilities. In all three institutions, Human Rights Watch found filthy conditions, with foul odors in some wards or even feces on the floors due to broken sewage systems. The hospital in Accra was severely overcrowded and many people spent all day outside the hospital building in the hot sun, with little or no shade.

Human Rights Watch found that at least hundreds - and possibly thousands - of people with mental disabilities are institutionalized in prayer camps associated with Pentecostal churches. Managed by self-proclaimed prophets, these camps operate completely outside of government control. People with mental disabilities at these camps do not receive any medical treatment - in some, such treatment is prohibited even when prescribed by a medical doctor. Instead, the prophets seek to "cure" residents through miracles, consultation with "angels," and spiritual healing.

The report found even worse conditions in prayer camps than in psychiatric institutions. At the eight prayer camps inspected, nearly all residents were chained by their ankles to trees in open compounds, where they slept, urinated, and defecated and bathed. Some had been at the prayer camps for as long as five months. As part of the "healing process," people with mental disabilities in these camps - including children under age 10 - are routinely forced to fast for weeks, usually starting with 36 hours of so-called dry-fasting, denied even water.

Doris Appiah lived both in prayer camps and psychiatric hospitals for a total of over 10 years, but is now living in the community. While in prayer camps, Appiah was tied with ropes for over two months, and forced to take harmful local herbs, which caused side effects to her tongue.

"As soon as you get a mental disability, you nearly lose all your rights, even to give your opinion," she told Human Rights Watch. "We call on government to ensure that services are available to persons with mental disabilities as close as possible and that prayer camps are monitored to guard against abuse of those admitted."

Ghana ratified the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities in July 2012. Under this convention, countries must undertake steps to ensure that people with mental disabilities can make important life decisions for themselves, including choosing their place of residence and with whom they live, and that they are not forced to live in institutions.

Ghana's 2012 Mental Health Act, which went into effect in June, creates a system through which people with disabilities can challenge their detention in psychiatric hospitals. However, the law does not apply to prayer camps, leaving residents without legal remedies to seek release. In most prayer camps, residents may only leave when the prophet deems them healed.

The act also allows forced admission and treatment in psychiatric hospitals and promotes guardianship as opposed to supported decision-making, which limits people with mental disabilities from making their own decisions. Both are inconsistent with the Disability Rights Convention.

The government should create community-based support services, including housing and healthcare that enable people with mental disabilities to live in the community, Human Rights Watch said. Facilities where people with mental disabilities are admitted or treated, including prayer camps, should be carefully regulated. The government should also ensure that people are not forcefully detained in these facilities or in psychiatric hospitals and that they have access to mechanisms to challenge any violations of their rights.

"Ghana deserves credit for ratifying the Disability Rights Convention," Ssengooba said. "Now it's time for some real changes to both policy and practice for people with mental disabilities in Ghana."

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Ghana: People With Mental Disabilities Face Serious Abuse

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People with mental disabilities suffer severe abuses in psychiatric institutions and spiritual healing centers in Ghana, Human Rights Watch said in a report released today. The Ghanaian government has done little to combat such abuse or to ensure that these people can live in the community, as is their right under international law.

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Belen Report on Abuse Against Persons with Disability in Ghana - Human Rights Watch

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Belen Report on Abuse Against Persons with Disability in Ghana - Human Rights Watch

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Published: 2012-10-04 (Revised/Updated 2017-10-23) : Author: Ghana News

Synopsis: Report states people with mental disabilities suffer severe abuses in psychiatric institutions and spiritual healing centers in Ghana.
"...in some of the spiritual healing centers, popularly known as prayer camps, they were often chained to trees, frequently in baking sun, and forced to fast for weeks as part of a "healing process," while being denied access to medications."
Main Document

Human Rights Watch, an international organization, has called on government to develop a voluntary community-based mental health service in consultation with persons with mental disabilities and their representative organizations.

Mr Medi Ssengooba, Finberg fellow at Human Rights Watch, said government should create community-based support services, including housing and healthcare that enable people with mental disabilities to live in the community.

Mr Ssengooba was speaking at a press conference to release a research report titled: "Like a Death Sentence': Abuses against Persons with Mental Disabilities in Ghana" in Accra on Tuesday.

He said people with mental disabilities suffer severe abuses in psychiatric institutions and spiritual healing centers in Ghana.

The 84-page report described how thousands of people with mental disabilities were forced to live in these institutions, often against their will and with the little possibility of challenging their confinement.

"In psychiatric hospitals, people with mental disabilities faced overcrowding and unsanitary conditions," he said.

He explained that in some of the spiritual healing centers, popularly known as prayer camps, they were often chained to trees, frequently in baking sun, and forced to fast for weeks as part of a "healing process," while being denied access to medications.

The report also highlights the challenges of people with mental disabilities, who lived in the community, faced stigma and discrimination and often lack adequate shelter, food and healthcare.

The World Health Organization estimates show that close to three million Ghanaians live with mental disabilities and 600,000 of these have very severe mental conditions.

Mr Ssengooba said government had done little to combat such abuse or to ensure that these people could live in the community, as was their right under international law.

"The government needs to take immediate steps to end abuses against people with mental disabilities in institutions, prayer camps and the community," Mr Ssengooba said.

He described the conditions in which many people with mental disabilities live in Ghana as inhuman and degrading.

Mr Ssengooba called on government to ensure that people were not forcefully detained in these facilities or in psychiatric hospitals and that they had access to mechanisms to challenge any violations of their rights.

He acknowledged the country for ratifying the Disability Right Convention and said it was time to see some real changes to the policy for people with mental disabilities in Ghana.

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Report on Abuse Against Persons with Disability in Ghana - Human Rights Watch

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Published: 2012-10-04 (Revised/Updated 2017-10-23) : Author: Ghana News Synopsis: Report states people with mental disabilities suffer severe abuses in psychiatric institutions and spiritual healing centers in Ghana. "...in some of the spiritual healing centers, popularly known as prayer camps, they were often chained to trees, frequently in baking sun, and forced to fast for weeks as part of a "healing process," while being denied access to medications."

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Ghana: Abuse of People with Disabilities

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Ghana: Abuse of People with Disabilities

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Discrimination Against People With Disabilities

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Ghana: Abuse of People with Disabilities

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People with mental disabilities suffer severe abuses in psychiatric institutions and spiritual healing centers in Ghana. The Ghanaian government has done little to combat such abuse or to ensure that these people can live in the community, as is their right under international law.

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This talks about how they found that gay and bisexual men have been subjected to a range of abuses at the hands of police in Kyrgyzstan, including physical, sexual, and psychological violence,arbitrary detention, and extortion under the threa

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(Bishkek) - Police in Kyrgyzstan have extorted, threatened, arbitrarily detained, beaten, and sexually abused gay and bisexual men, Human Rights Watch said in a report released today. Although consensual sex between men was decriminalized in Kyrgyzstan in 1998, police target gay and bisexual men for violence and extortion, Human Rights Watch found.

The 65-page report, "They Told Us We Deserved This: Police Violence against Gay and Bisexual Men in Kyrgyzstan," found that gay and bisexual men have been subjected to a range of abuses at the hands of police in Kyrgyzstan, including physical, sexual, and psychological violence; arbitrary detention; and extortion under the threat of violence or of exposing victims' sexual orientation to friends and family. The report is based on detailed interviews with 40 gay and bisexual men in four regions of Kyrgyzstan. The government should condemn and thoroughly investigate reports of abuse and establish a confidential complaint mechanism for all cases of abuse by police officers.

"Gay and bisexual men in Kyrgyzstan already live in fear due to widespread homophobic attitudes, and the police are making a nightmarish situation even worse," said Anna Kirey, Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender (LGBT) rights researcher at Human Rights Watch. "Kyrgyzstan authorities at the very top levels need to call a halt to this police abuse and make sure that gay and bisexual men have the protection they need."

Violence, blackmail, and extortion by police, and a lack of accountability for these crimes are all too common in Kyrgyzstan. But those who belong to minority groups are particularly vulnerable. Gay and bisexual men are easy targets for abuse because of the population's deep social conservatism.

Kyrgyzstan police target gay and bisexual men in parks, gay clubs, hotel rooms, and on dating websites. Human Rights Watch documented cases of severe physical violence against gay and bisexual men including punching, kicking, and beating with gun butts, batons, empty beer bottles, or other objects. Several gay men also reported sexual violence by police officers including rape, group rape, and attempts to put a stick, a hammer, or an electric shock device in the person's anus, as well as gratuitous touching during a search, or being forced to undress in front of police.

Fathullo F. (not his real name), 32, told Human Rights Watch that in May 2012 he went to what he thought was a date with another man. When he arrived at the meeting place, police officers grabbed and handcuffed him. They took him to a police station, where they beat him to force him to write a confession and to give them contact information for his employer and his family. He said the officers threatened to initiate a criminal sodomy case against him unless he gave them money and contact information of other gay men, and that he suspected they wanted to target these other men for extortion.

"The officers told me that people like me do not deserve to be on face of the earth," Fathullo told Human Rights Watch. "I asked them to let me sit down because I was tired. They said that I didn't deserve to use their chair and spat on me. They said that I didn't deserve to live, and threatened to destroy me if I didn't give them 10,000 soms [US$214]."

In another case, Demetra D., 32, from Bishkek told Human Rights Watch that in four separate incidents between 2004 and 2011, police officers took him into custody and raped him, attempted to rape him, or allowed other detainees to rape him.

Only two of the 40 men Human Rights Watch interviewed had filed complaints with the police. Neither case led to anyone being held accountable for the abuse. The others said they did not file complaints for fear of retaliation or of having information about their sexual orientation sent to their families or employers. Human Rights Watch has not been able to find a single case in which a police officer has been held accountable for the arbitrary detention, extortion, torture, or ill-treatment of a gay or bisexual man.

The government of Kyrgyzstan has taken a number of measures to stop torture and ill-treatment in detention facilities, but have no mechanism to file complaints about police abuse for people who are not incarcerated. The government should establish an independent mechanism to which any victim of police abuse, including gay and bisexual men, can turn without fear of their privacy being violated.

"Police officers in Kyrgyzstan know that they can beat, rape, and otherwise torment gay men and extort money from them without suffering any consequences," Kirey said. "Nobody should live in fear because of whom they love. Kyrgyzstan's authorities need to put a stop to police abuse of gay men."
Selected testimonies

It was the worst thing for me when they threatened to tell my family. I have brothers who are very religious. One word and this would be death [for me]. I wrote what the police told me to write. I was scared that they would tell my family. I wrote my name and address. I didn't know what to do. They let me go after I said that I could give them 3,000 soms (US$60). They threatened me and then let me go [get the money]. I had to lie to my mom to get this money. I went back to the station and gave the money to the police. I asked for my statement, and they handed it to me and insisted I tear it up in their presence.

- Isroil I. (not his real name), a victim of police abuse and extortion

The police said, 'Are you a faggot? Why do you come here?' Then they pointed a gun at me and showed their IDs. One of them hit me in the temple and I fell on their car. They threw me in the car and drove around for some time. They said they would drown me in a canal if I didn't give them US$600. In the car they hit me in the head with the handle of the gun. Then took me to the police station, kicked me some more, and said that they would call my mom and tell her about the kinds of clubs I visit.

- Maksim Bratukhin, head of the Bishkek-based LGBT rights group Pathfinder, who said that several police officers detained and beat him, and threatened him with death after he left a gay nightclub in Bishkek in April 2008.

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Kyrgyzstan: Police Abuse, Extortion of Gay Men

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(Bishkek) - Police in Kyrgyzstan have extorted, threatened, arbitrarily detained, beaten, and sexually abused gay and bisexual men, Human Rights Watch said in a report released today. Although consensual sex between men was decriminalized in Kyrgyzstan in 1998, police target gay and bisexual men for violence and extortion, Human Rights Watch found.

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This article talks about how many small children are working in mines. They are young as 8 years old. This is happening in Mbeya Region, Tanzania.

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© 2013 Justin Purefoy for Human Rights Watch.

"I thought I was dead," Adam K. said, describing a mining accident the previous year, when he was 16 years-old. Adam, who started mining at age 12, was digging a horizontal mining shaft, deep in the ground. The tunnel collapsed in front of him, burying and killing two of his friends. "I was so scared," he told me, "I just cried and despaired."

But the accident didn't stop Adam from mining. Having failed the exam at the end of primary school, which barred him from continuing his education, Adam had journeyed from one small-scale mine to another, seeking work where he could find it. When I met him in northwestern Tanzania, just south of Lake Victoria, he was working the night shift - 7p.m. to 7a.m. - digging another deep pit from the area's red earth, using a pickaxe, shovel, and hammer. In return, he was paid with bags of rocks, which, if he was lucky, would contain traces of gold.

Thousands of children like Adam work in Tanzania's small-scale gold mines, some as young as 8. (Small-scale mines are also called "artisanal," although the work is a far cry from the elevated craftsmanship that word implies.) Following more than 200 interviews and other research over the last year, Human Rights Watch has found that children risk serious injury and even death from the work.

Like Adam, they dig in deep, unstable pits for shifts of up to 24 hours. They haul and crush heavy bags of gold ore into powder. And they process gold using toxic mercury, handling it with their bare hands, as Adam told me he did from age 14, and breathing in fumes when it is burned. Mercury, which is particularly harmful to children, attacks the central nervous system and can cause tremors and twitching, memory loss, and irreversible brain damage as well as damage to the kidneys and the lungs. A doctor in Papua New Guinea who treated small-scale miners for mercury poisoning, described his patients staring blankly at the wall as like "zombies."

Tanzanian law prohibits mines from employing children under age 18. But the government has done little to enforce this prohibition, rarely inspecting small-scale mines or sanctioning those who hire children.

Many local gold traders, who then sell to other dealers or directly to exporters, buy openly from children. One trader told us, "I buy from anyone and I sell to anyone."

Tanzania is the fourth-largest gold producer in Africa, and about 10 percent of its gold comes from small-scale mines. The United Arab Emirates is the top buyer, but Tanzania also exports gold to Switzerland, South Africa, China, and the United Kingdom. From there, it's sold to refiners, and eventually to retailers for investment, jewelry, industry, and other uses.

But the problem isn't limited to Tanzania - it's common in many countries worldwide, particularly West Africa's "gold belt," where Human Rights Watch has conducted investigations in Mali and Ghana. Worldwide, about a million children work in all kinds of small-scale mines and quarries, the International Labor Organization estimates.

Mining is one of the most dangerous jobs in the world and should never be done by children. Gold buyers, refiners, retailers, and consumers, in turn, should not profit from unlawful child labor. We found little evidence that either domestic traders or international companies are doing nearly enough to detect and eliminate unlawful child labor in their supply chains. They should establish - and their buyers should demand - a thorough due diligence process so that their buyers can be confident their purchases are not the products of unlawful child labor or other abuses. All companies should include regular monitoring, and companies should visit artisanal mines to ensure they have accurate information.

The best way to make this a reality is for companies' home governments to make human rights due diligence mandatory, and establish clear guidelines as to what it ought to look like. Boycotts are not the answer - they risk reducing the income of already impoverished artisanal mining communities and may even increase child labor as families become more desperate. Instead, companies, jointly with their local suppliers, could also initiate programs to transition children out of their supply chain.

Donors, which are significantly supporting and developing Tanzania's mineral sector, should work to reduce child labor and mercury use in small-scale gold mining. The World Bank in particular, whose five-year, $50 million project covers many aspects of the country's mineral sector, should include initiatives that target these areas. The ILO, which ended its focus on mining in 2010, should again make it a priority - it will need countries' support to do that.

The Tanzanian government, in turn, should enforce its own laws that would keep children out of mines, improve support for orphans and other children especially at risk of being involved, strengthen access to education, and reduce the use of mercury. More broadly, all countries should ratify and implement the new Minamata Convention on Mercury, which opens for signature in October. This important new international treaty requires governments to develop plans to eliminate the most harmful forms of mercury use, promote mercury free mining methods, protect children and women of childbearing age from mercury exposure, and take steps to improve the health of miners.

People around the world profit from Tanzania's gold as it is transformed into wealth, beautiful jewelry, and electronics. But for those, Adam pays a high price - he risks his health, and perhaps his life, in exchange for a bag of rocks.

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"I thought I was dead," Adam K. said, describing a mining accident the previous year, when he was 16 years-old. Adam, who started mining at age 12, was digging a horizontal mining shaft, deep in the ground. The tunnel collapsed in front of him, burying and killing two of his friends.

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By Medi Ssengooba, Special to CNN
Editor's note: Medi Ssengooba is the Finberg fellow at Human Rights Watch, working in the field of disability rights and the primary author of a new report, "Like a Death Sentence: Abuses against Persons with Mental Disabilities in Ghana." The views expressed are the author's own.
When we met Elijah early this year in Ghana, he was chained to a tree at a "prayer camp." Five months earlier, his family had him bound with rope and forcibly taken to the camp for "treatment." Elijah told me that he had been chained to the tree ever since - the "healing" prescribed for the restlessness and insomnia that his parents and the camp's spiritual leaders had decided was a mental disability.

Elijah said he longed to sleep indoors, and to have some measure of privacy. But he will probably remain chained to that tree, where he sleeps, bathes, and defecates in an open compound, until the camp's spiritual leader, known as a "prophet," has decided he has been cured and can return home.

Elijah was one of dozens of people I interviewed while researching how Ghana treats its 2.8 million residents with mental disabilities (mental health problems) including thousands in psychiatric hospitals and prayer camps.

My interest in disability rights is rooted in my experience living with a physical disability in Uganda. I already knew that in Uganda people with mental disabilities are the objects of stigma, discrimination, and sometimes serious abuse. I chose to go to Ghana because it is one of the leading democracies in Africa with one of the fastest growing disability rights movements, and I thought things would be better there.

But I was mistaken. Based on what I witnessed in three public psychiatric hospitals, eight prayer camps, and communities all over the country, Ghana still has a long way to go to ensure that people with mental disabilities enjoy the same rights as other citizens.

Many of the people with mental disabilities we met in Ghana had been admitted against their will to overcrowded and unsanitary psychiatric hospitals and prayer camps. In one psychiatric hospital, there were only three nurses for more than 200 patients. The patients were often locked in their rooms or injected with sedatives to manage them. In some hospitals and prayer camps, many also lived among urine and feces because the staff had no time to clean. In hospitals, people either took their medication peacefully or were forced to. Some were beaten for resisting.

What I witnessed in the prayer camps was even worse. These privately owned Christian religious institutions operate throughout Ghana. In some, "prophets" treat people with mental disabilities through prayer and traditional medicines, like herbs. Administrators and pastors in seven of the camps I visited said that mandatory fasting - in some cases, as long as 12 hours a day, for 7 to 40 days - was a key component of their "treatment."

In Jesus Divine Temple (often called Nyakumasi Prayer Camp), where I met Elijah and about 20 other people - including a 10-year-old child - all people with mental disabilities lived just like Elijah: with no shelter, chained to trees outdoors in a forest. Almost all of them complained of hunger, either because they were forced to fast or because the camp appears not to have provided food, putting that responsibility instead on their families.

At Heavenly Ministries Spiritual Revival and Healing Center (called Edumfa Prayer Camp), I met people who were chained to the walls of a very small, hot room. The buckets they used to relieve themselves were in that same room and it reeked of urine and feces.

In some camps, such rooms were locked even at midday when we visited - even though people with mental disabilities inside, some children as young as 9, were chained and could not leave. In any event, there was no place for many of them to go. Some people told me they had been abandoned there by family members. Family members and caregivers also said they had taken their relatives to the prayer camp because there was nowhere else they could get treatment.

The abuses we documented in state-run psychiatric hospitals, and in prayer camps, which operate without any government oversight, amount to cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment. Forcible detention and assault are also crimes in Ghana. But these crimes are never prosecuted. Public officials, caretakers, and even family members generally accept that people with mental disabilities can be treated this way.

We also spoke to people with mental disabilities who were living in the community. While they complained that they faced stigma and lacked access to medication, food and shelter, they were also relieved to be living with their families and not in institutions.

International donors have poured millions of dollars of development aid into Ghana, funding nearly 15 percent of Ghana's health budget. But government budgetary allocations for mental health are less than 6 percent of the national health budget. And none of the international development partners with whom I spoke, such as the World Bank and USAID, had mental health services on their agendas.

In July, the government of Ghana ratified the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. This is proof of its commitment to ensuring the health and human rights of people with mental disabilities. Now Ghana needs to set up a system for people with mental disabilities to access support and effective treatment in their communities, rather than being consigned to abusive psychiatric hospitals and prayer camps. And while the government is setting up such a system, it needs to take immediate steps to end these horrific abuses.

Ghana has provided an example for African stability and peaceful political transition. If it takes these steps, it will offer regional leadership in mental health. And it will also provide millions of its people living lives of misery and torment the prospect of a productive and satisfying future.

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By Medi Ssengooba, Special to CNN Editor's note: Medi Ssengooba is the Finberg fellow at Human Rights Watch, working in the field of disability rights and the primary author of a new report, "Like a Death Sentence: Abuses against Persons with Mental Disabilities in Ghana.

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Do people/family members try to do something about abuse with people with disabilities in ghana

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Do people/family members try to do something about abuse with people with disabilities in ghana

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Published: 2012-10-04 (Revised/Updated 2017-10-23) : Author: Ghana News

Synopsis: Report states people with mental disabilities suffer severe abuses in psychiatric institutions and spiritual healing centers in Ghana.
"...in some of the spiritual healing centers, popularly known as prayer camps, they were often chained to trees, frequently in baking sun, and forced to fast for weeks as part of a "healing process," while being denied access to medications."
Main Document

Human Rights Watch, an international organization, has called on government to develop a voluntary community-based mental health service in consultation with persons with mental disabilities and their representative organizations.

Mr Medi Ssengooba, Finberg fellow at Human Rights Watch, said government should create community-based support services, including housing and healthcare that enable people with mental disabilities to live in the community.

Mr Ssengooba was speaking at a press conference to release a research report titled: "Like a Death Sentence': Abuses against Persons with Mental Disabilities in Ghana" in Accra on Tuesday.

He said people with mental disabilities suffer severe abuses in psychiatric institutions and spiritual healing centers in Ghana.

The 84-page report described how thousands of people with mental disabilities were forced to live in these institutions, often against their will and with the little possibility of challenging their confinement.

"In psychiatric hospitals, people with mental disabilities faced overcrowding and unsanitary conditions," he said.

He explained that in some of the spiritual healing centers, popularly known as prayer camps, they were often chained to trees, frequently in baking sun, and forced to fast for weeks as part of a "healing process," while being denied access to medications.

The report also highlights the challenges of people with mental disabilities, who lived in the community, faced stigma and discrimination and often lack adequate shelter, food and healthcare.

The World Health Organization estimates show that close to three million Ghanaians live with mental disabilities and 600,000 of these have very severe mental conditions.

Mr Ssengooba said government had done little to combat such abuse or to ensure that these people could live in the community, as was their right under international law.

"The government needs to take immediate steps to end abuses against people with mental disabilities in institutions, prayer camps and the community," Mr Ssengooba said.

He described the conditions in which many people with mental disabilities live in Ghana as inhuman and degrading.

Mr Ssengooba called on government to ensure that people were not forcefully detained in these facilities or in psychiatric hospitals and that they had access to mechanisms to challenge any violations of their rights.

He acknowledged the country for ratifying the Disability Right Convention and said it was time to see some real changes to the policy for people with mental disabilities in Ghana.

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Report on Abuse Against Persons with Disability in Ghana - Human Rights Watch

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Published: 2012-10-04 (Revised/Updated 2017-10-23) : Author: Ghana News Synopsis: Report states people with mental disabilities suffer severe abuses in psychiatric institutions and spiritual healing centers in Ghana. "...in some of the spiritual healing centers, popularly known as prayer camps, they were often chained to trees, frequently in baking sun, and forced to fast for weeks as part of a "healing process," while being denied access to medications."

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In today's day and age, a cause-celeb within the liberal establishment is its crusade for "human rights," typically with regard to what they consider inequity among minority groups, the LGBT community, and illegal immigrants. Yet the same liberals who excoriate conservatives for supporting traditional marriage, advocating for voter ID laws, or supporting tougher immigration reform, were curiously reticent when IKEA purged its entire Saudi-edition catalog of all images of women. In turn, the left is equally silent when it comes to the myriad human rights abuses taking place all over the world.

Take, for instance, Ghana, where people afflicted with mental disabilities are relegated to subhuman living conditions and treatment that, by any stretch, would constitute "torture" by Western standards. In a disturbing 84-page report issued at the beginning of October in which 170 Ghanaians participated, Human Rights Watch (HRW) exposed how life for the country's mentally disabled is "like a death sentence." Exacerbating the matter is the country's government, which is either willfully blind or outright complicit in the atrocities.

HRW's report titled, "'Like a Death Sentence': Abuses against Persons with Mental Disabilities in Ghana," describes how thousands of Ghana's most severely affected people with mental disabilities are forced into psychiatric hospitals or "prayer camps," often against their will. Beyond poor sanitary conditions, sleep and food deprivation, forced electro-convulsive shock therapy (ECT) and a host of other physical abuse including being chained to trees in the hot sun or pouring rain for days, months or even years on end, appear to be par for the course. HRW explains:

In psychiatric hospitals, people with mental disabilities face overcrowding and unsanitary conditions. In some of the spiritual healing centers, popularly known as prayer camps, they are often chained to trees, frequently in the baking sun, and forced to fast for weeks as part of a "healing process," while being denied access to medications.

According to the report, Ghana's afflicted are often ostracized from their respective communities, lack sustenance, shelter and health care and ultimately find themselves in a position where they've nowhere to turn for proper care.

"The government needs to take immediate steps to end abuses against people with mental disabilities in institutions, prayer camps, and the community," Medi Ssengooba, Finberg fellow at Human Rights Watch said in an official press release. "The conditions in which many people with mental disabilities live in Ghana are inhuman and degrading."

With The World Health Organization estimating that 3 million Ghanaians suffer from mental illness - 600,000 of which are severely affected, the country only houses three public psychiatric hospitals and eight prayer camps. The HRW report goes on to explain that the three hospitals combined only support 1,000 patients. Given the abhorrent conditions of the facilities, however, it may actually be small consolation that so many others disabled Ghanaians are left to their own devices.

HRW reports that in all three of the institutions, "filthy conditions, with foul odors in some wards or even feces on the floors due to broken sewage systems," were found. "The hospital in Accra was severely overcrowded and many people spent all day outside the hospital building in the hot sun, with little or no shade," HRW's press release stated.

The report also uncovered that "at least hundreds - and possibly thousands" of people suffering with mental disabilities are institutionalized in prayer camps associated with Pentecostal churches "managed by self-proclaimed prophets." The camps operate outside government control, and given the atrocities committed there, likely operate outside any official Pentecostal church purview as well.

At the camps, according to HRW, people with mental disabilities "do not receive any medical treatment - in some, such treatment is prohibited even when prescribed by a medical doctor." Rather, the self-appointed "prophets" will seek to "cure" those suffering through purges - essentially exorcisms - and effect change "through miracles, consultation with 'angels,' and spiritual healing." Disturbingly, that spiritual healing appears to consist of even worse abuse than in the country's mental institutions.

"Nearly all residents were chained by their ankles to trees in open compounds, where they slept, urinated, and defecated and bathed," the report states.

"Some had been at the prayer camps for as long as five months. As part of the 'healing process,' people with mental disabilities in these camps - including children under age 10 - are routinely forced to fast for weeks, usually starting with 36 hours of so-called dry-fasting, denied even water."

One of 170 Ghanaians interviewed by HRW, Doris Appiah, experienced life both at the prayer camps and in the country's dismal psychiatric institutions over the span of 10 years. While in the prayer camps, Appiah, who reportedly suffers from bi-polar disorder, was bound by rope for over two months and "forced to take harmful local herbs, which caused side effects to her tongue."

"As soon as you get a mental disability, you nearly lose all your rights, even to give your opinion," Appiah told HRW in a recorded interview before explaining that calls on government to monitor and regulate conditions at the prayer camps and mental hospitals have gone unanswered.

The HRW report also explains that although Ghana ratified "the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities" in July 2012, which states that countries must ensure people suffering from mental disabilities be allowed to choose for themselves whether or not to be institutionalized, there are loopholes through which the authorities operate nefariously. HRW explains:

Ghana's 2012 Mental Health Act, which went into effect in June, creates a system through which people with disabilities can challenge their detention in psychiatric hospitals. However, the law does not apply to prayer camps, leaving residents without legal remedies to seek release. In most prayer camps, residents may only leave when the prophet deems them healed.

The act also allows forced admission and treatment in psychiatric hospitals and promotes guardianship as opposed to supported decision-making, which limits people with mental disabilities from making their own decisions. Both are inconsistent with the Disability Rights Convention.

While some human rights advocates have applauded Ghana for ratifying its convention on the rights of persons with disabilities, corruption, inefficiency and a failure to truly oversee and regulate the country's mental health facilities and prayer camps leave the core problem undressed.

When one considers the array of human rights abuses that occur across Africa and the Middle East, it is a wonder why the West's champions for human rights have remained deafeningly silent in the face of true atrocities.

While the U.S. may not be a perfect nation, and indeed has its own blemished history when it comes to the treatment of people suffering from mental disabilities, the West's humanity and ability to right its wrongs often goes unsung by progressive solons. Perhaps these occasional reminders of the living conditions endured by people in other parts of the world will bode well for those who only seem focused on America, Israel, or other Western nations' so-called "abuses."

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'Like a Death Sentence': Disturbing Report Exposes Ghana's Abuse of People With Mental Disabilities...Where's the Liberal Outrage?

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In today's day and age, a cause-celeb within the liberal establishment is its crusade for "human rights," typically with regard to what they consider inequity among minority groups, the LGBT community, and illegal immigrants.

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Doris Appiah, 57, has bipolar disorder. In her early twenties, she was sent to an overcrowded psychiatric hospital followed by a "prayer camp" to be treated. She stayed there for five years, at times tied to a wall or forced to fast. Her story is mirrored by thousands of mentally ill people across Ghana, according to a 2 October Human Rights Watch (HRW) report entitled Like a Death Sentence.

The government is trying to update the country's mental health care laws, starting with the passing of the 2012 Mental Health Act. The act is supposed to improve access to mental health services and prevent abuse. But HRW says the law does not go far enough as it only addresses the formal health sector rather than community-based mental healthcare needs.

Patients with mental health problems are often kept against their will in overcrowded and unsanitary psychiatric institutions.

Ghana has only three public psychiatric hospitals (all of them in the south), 12 practising psychiatrists, and 600 psychiatric nurses. In one ward of Accra Psychiatric Hospital in the capital, there are just 26 functional beds for 205 in-patients, according to HRW. Nurses, lacking cleaning equipment, "instructed patients to clean the wards and toilets, including removing other patients' faeces without gloves", said the researchers.

Without enough staff to properly restrain aggressive patients, staff routinely turn to violence, patients told HRW. Patients reported physical abuse in the form of beatings, forced seclusion and involuntary electro-shock therapy.

One 25-year-old pregnant woman told a group of HRW researchers who visited three institutions and eight prayer camps earlier this year, that while kept in a seclusion room for 12 hours she was beaten by nurses.

Health Ministry spokesman Daniel Osman said he acknowledges that Ghana's psychiatric hospitals are overcrowded, understaffed, and difficult to access for many people in need, but said progress was being made. "We are making an effort to decentralize [the system] so every regional hospital has a psychiatric unit," he told IRIN.

You think you are human, but people no longer think you are human

The World Health Organization has estimated some 2.8 million people have mental disabilities in Ghana, 650,000 of them severe. The most common problems are schizophrenia, bipolar disorder and major depression, Akwasi Osei, director of Accra Psychiatric Hospital, told HRW. Less common, but prevalent, are drug-related psychosis and epilepsy.
Community stigma
Families send their relatives to such institutions when a mental health crisis becomes acute and often because they feel they have few alternatives: There is little-to-no community care for mental illness in Ghana.

"It is so stigmatizing even to be seen entering the gate of a psychiatric hospital. People will brand you," said Medi Ssengooba, a disability rights research fellow with HRW in New York. "If services were provided in the community, people would go in and seek them freely," he said, acknowledging it would take time for attitudes to change.

Mental disability in Ghana is widely considered to be caused by evil spirits or demons. When "orthodox" psychiatric treatment does not work, some resort to prayer camps which enact so-called spiritual healing.
Bondage and fasting
In reality, many residents of prayer camps face severe abuse. Aggressive residents are chained up, according to Ssengooba. "Almost everyone we met... was chained to trees or to walls," including children as young as nine.

Residents are regularly denied food and drink for a three-day period or required to fast 12 hours a day for up to 40 days, as this is thought to rid the body of evil spirits. "I'm really, really hungry and they won't feed me. I don't understand... Why can I not eat? They give me porridge at night, but that's not enough food," a woman identified as Afia at Mount Horeb Prayer camp in Ghana's Eastern region told researchers.

Doris Appiah spent 19 years in prayer camps and psychiatric hospitals before being discharged in 1989. "They kept moving me because they were not seeing results, and they were not seeing results because the right thing was not being done," she told IRIN.

"You think you are human, but people no longer think you are human," she added.

Residents of both hospitals and prayer camps are often kept against their will": Prayer camp leaders say they must wait for messages from God before releasing residents, said Ssengooba.

The Ministry of Health's Osman said the government had little oversight of prayer camps, as they are run by churches.
Improvements
The situation is improving slowly. Thanks to the disabilities act, people can now challenge their detention in institutions. Access to appropriate medication has also improved over the past 30 years, and several advocacy organizations now lobby to improve the quality of services for the mentally ill.

Appiah has learned to manage her illness with the right medicine and the help of international NGO Basic Needs. She now works as the treasurer of the Mental Health Society of Ghana.

But parts of the act still transgress the 2006 Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (which Ghana has ratified), as it still enables forced admission and treatment in psychiatric hospitals. And there is not enough emphasis on community-based care (providing the mentally ill with housing and health care, for instance) or on monitoring the quality of hospital care, warns HRW.

If quality monitoring worked, some institutions would be forced to cease taking on patients altogether. "If you don't have the means to house them [mentally ill patients], or to feed them - if the only means you have to constrain an aggressive person is to chain them, that person should not be a service provider," Ssengooba told IRIN.

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Misery of "prayer camps" for mentally ill

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Doris Appiah, 57, has bipolar disorder. In her early twenties, she was sent to an overcrowded psychiatric hospital followed by a "prayer camp" to be treated. She stayed there for five years, at times tied to a wall or forced to fast.

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Ghana: Serious Abuse for People With Mental Disabilities

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IN THEIR OWN WORDS: The real story of disability in Ghana

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IN THEIR OWN WORDS: The real story of disability in Ghana

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IN THEIR OWN WORDS: The real story of disability in Ghana. Part 1

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In 2006 the Ghanian government passed a disability act. Three years on, The Eastern Disability Network and The National Bureau for Students with Disabilities, two Disabled Persons Organisations based in Koforidua, decided to find out what impact the act has had for people with disabilities in eastern Ghana.

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Yareli/The Blind Side: Disability and Development in Ghana

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Yareli/The Blind Side: Disability and Development in Ghana

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This article is talking about the people with mental illness in Ghana and how they have scant hope of treatment or recovery. According about 650,000 people suffer from a severe mental illness, while another two million have milder disorders.