Forgotten Patients Shackled in Ghana

The Other Kind Of ‘Prisoner’ That Is Shackled In Ghana

The Human Rights Watch organisation, an international NGO defending and promoting human rights globally, have recently documented people with mental health conditions being abused in the name of “healing” at prayer/healing camps in Ghana.

In 2017, Ghana’s government pledged to enforce a ban on shackling to help those chained or confined in prayer camps. There has been some progress since, but this practice is still widely spread.

“People in Ghana resort to shackling people with psychosocial disabilities because they see no alternatives,” Peter Yaro, executive director of BasicNeeds Ghana. “It’s now been five years since the passage of the Mental Health Act and it is high time for the government to invest in community-based mental health services so people with psychosocial disabilities can get the support they want, instead of ending up in shackles.” – Peter Yaros comments in 2017 still ring true to this day.

Despite the practice of shackling effectively being banned in 2017, with the Mental Health Review Tribunal and Visiting Committees acting as enforcers of the ban, this abuse still continues on throughout the country – in remote and populated areas.

Many people are brought to these prayer camps by their families and loved ones who believe their conditions are the cause of evil spirits and demons, and that prayer is the best way to treat them of their affliction; as a result of other treatments being inaccessible because of costs and travel related issues.

The environments in which people are chained and confined in are typically not conducive in their treatment in any way, shape or form. Elizabeth Kamundia, a human rights watch advocate, mentions the conditions within these prayer camps as “torture”, those held within these camps are forced to urinate, eat and live their entire time there within these cramped decrepit spaces where they also defecate.

It is high time this practice is eradicated from Ghana and the rest of Africa. With better education and awareness of mental health conditions for patients and the general population, and further developments in community-based mental health services, the children, women and men held in these camps can receive the treatment they so desperately need and go on to live quality and productive lives.