Ghana must act “immediately” to end the abuse and exploitation of people with actual or suspected illnesses, Human Rights Watch has said, a practice that continues despite restrictive laws.
“Shackling people with mental disabilities in prayer camps and treatment centers is a form of abuse,” said Shantha Rau Barriga, disability rights director at Human Rights Watch, in a statement Thursday.
The International Human Rights Commission said that 10 years after the Mental Health Act established that people with mental disabilities should not be abused, the government is not doing enough to ensure that it is applied.
Based on research conducted by the group since 2011, it found that families often take people with mental illness to faith or traditional healers because of the widespread belief that mental disabilities lead to curses or evil spirits.
In previous reports, the group said detainees often suffer from post-traumatic stress, malnutrition, infections, neurological damage, muscle weakness and heart disease.
Between November 28 and 30, HRW researchers visited five prayer camps and traditional healing centers in eastern and central Ghana and interviewed more than 50 people, the group said.
In all the places he visited, people were handcuffed or locked in small cages, “in some cases for up to seven months”.
HRW said the investigators found “more than 60 people arrested or detained, including some children”.
At another herbal medicine center in Senya Beraku, 22 men were found locked in a dark, barren room, all with chains, less than half a meter long, around their ankles. “They are forced to urinate and defecate in a small container across the room. “Even if it rains, they are allowed to shower every two weeks,” said HRW.
“Please help us,” one man said to the investigators, “we have a human right to freedom.”
The team reported that they saw serious human rights violations in all the areas they visited, including lack of adequate food, poor sanitation, lack of sanitation, lack of freedom of movement, and one case of repeated sexual violence.
“In all five camps, people were held against their will in what amounts to indefinite detention,” the group said.
According to Ghana’s Mental Health Act (PDF), people with mental disabilities “shall not be subjected to torture, ill-treatment, abuse, coercion or any other form of abuse,” including imprisonment. However, HRW’s Barriga said: “Although Ghana has banned chain-linking, the government has failed to ensure that people with mental disabilities do not live in such cruel conditions.”
Speaking to the AFP news agency, Ghana’s Deputy Minister of Health, Tina Gifty Mensah, said the government is not happy with the practice of arresting and detaining people.
“Obviously, it’s a situation that is against the law in Ghana and the government and other stakeholders have done a lot of education to make people aware of it,” Mensah told AFP.
“We will see the report of Human Rights Watch, and the relevant organizations will do what is necessary to make this happen.”
