International Human Rights Group, Amnesty International, has
urged the Nigerian Government to ban the violent and dehumanizing practices
used against people suffering from Mental health issues in the country.
In a damning report, published today, Monday, Amnesty
International said mental health patients are dehumanized, chained, beaten and
violently treated "in many settings, including state hospitals,
rehabilitation centres, traditional healing centres, and both Christian and
Islamic faith-based facilities".
Nigeria, the world's 7th largest country with a population
of 200 million people, and according to the World Health Organization (WHO),
one in four Nigerians (50 million people) suffer from mental health issues, but
the country has less than 150 professional psychiatrists.
According to the WHO, Nigeria has the highest rate of
depression in the African continent and only 10 percent of mentally ill people
have access to the kind of care they deserve, making mental health a serious
but underrated issue.
People with mental health conditions should be supported and
provided with effective services in their communities, not chained and
abused," said Emina Cerimovic, senior disability rights researcher at
Amnesty International.
"People with mental health conditions find themselves
in chains in various places in Nigeria, subject to years of unimaginable
hardship and abuse," she said.
Read the full report by Amnesty International below;
Thousands of people with mental health conditions across
Nigeria are chained and locked up in various facilities where they face
terrible abuse.
Detention, chaining, and violent treatment are pervasive in
many settings, including state hospitals, rehabilitation centers, traditional
healing centers, and both Christian and Islamic faith-based facilities.
“People with mental health conditions should be supported
and provided with effective services in their communities, not chained and
abused,” said Emina Cerimovic, senior disability rights researcher at Human
Rights Watch. “People with mental health conditions find themselves in chains
in various places in Nigeria, subject to years of unimaginable hardship and
abuse.”
President Muhammadu Buhari said in October 2019 of the
Islamic Rehabilitation centers that he would not “tolerate the existence of the
torture chambers and physical abuses of inmates in the name of rehabilitation.”
But the government has yet to acknowledge that this abuse is rife in
government-run facilities too.
Between August 2018 and September 2019, Human Rights Watch
visited 28 facilities ostensibly providing mental health care in 8 states and
the Federal Capital Territory, including federal psychiatric hospitals, general
state hospitals, state-owned rehabilitation centers, Islamic rehabilitation
centers, traditional healing centers, and Christian churches. Human Rights
Watch interviewed 124 people, including 49 chaining victims and their families,
staff in various facilities, mental health professionals, and government
officials. The names of the victims have been changed to protect their safety.
Deep-rooted problems in Nigeria’s healthcare and welfare
systems leave most Nigerians unable to get adequate mental health care or
support in their communities. Stigma and misunderstanding about mental health
conditions, including the misperception that they are caused by evil spirits or
supernatural forces, often prompt relatives to take their loved ones to
religious or traditional healing places.
Human Rights Watch found that people with actual or
perceived mental health conditions, including children, are placed in
facilities without their consent, usually by relatives. In some cases, police
arrest people with actual or perceived mental health conditions and send them
to government-run rehabilitation centers. Once there, many are shackled with iron
chains, around one or both ankles, to heavy objects or to other detainees, in
some cases for months or years. They cannot leave, are often confined in
overcrowded, unhygienic conditions, and are sometimes forced to sleep, eat, and
defecate within the same confined place. Many are physically and emotionally
abused as well as forced to take treatments.
A nun in charge during a Human Rights Watch visit to a
state-owned rehabilitation center in southeastern Nigeria said they chain
people to their beds “so they do not run away.” The nun defended chaining a
woman who had HIV “to stop her from going around the men.” Human Rights Watch
found another woman at the same institution chained naked to her bed.
The staff, except one older guard, would leave at 6:30 p.m.
each day, leaving residents, including children as young as 13, with no one to
help them. The facility has no electricity, so people are chained to their beds
in total darkness. The nun said that, “The patients are given flashlights to
use at night.”
In a traditional healing center close to Abuja, Nigeria’s
capital, Human Rights Watch met a woman who was pinned to a tree trunk with an
iron ring. She had been restrained like this for three weeks with her upper
body naked. She was unable to move and so she was forced to eat, urinate, and
defecate where she sat.
Chaining can cause serious injuries and psychological
distress. A 35-year-old woman chained for 10 months in an Islamic
rehabilitation center in Kano, northern Nigeria, said, “Everything about this
(chaining) is difficult. You feel like you want to commit suicide … regardless
of how you felt before coming here, you will get worse.”
Adults and children in some Islamic rehabilitation centers
reported being whipped, causing deep wounds. People in Christian healing
centers and churches described being denied food for up to three days at a
time, which staff characterized as “fasting” for “treatment” purposes.
In many of the traditional and religious rehabilitation
centers visited, staff forced people with mental health conditions, including
children, to eat or drink herbs, in some cases with staff pinning people down
to make them swallow.
In psychiatric hospitals and government-run rehabilitation
centers, staff forcibly administered medication, while some staff admitted to
administering electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) to patients without their
consent.
In some cases, families took their children – including
young adults – to religious and traditional rehabilitation centers for actual
or perceived drug use or “deviant” behavior, including skipping school, smoking
tobacco or marijuana, or stealing from their parents. Some children in the
facilities – some as young as 10 – have been abandoned by their families.
Nigeria ratified the Convention on the Rights of Persons
with Disabilities (CRPD) in 2007. It has the obligation to ensure equal rights
for people with disabilities, including the right to liberty and freedom from
torture, ill-treatment, and forced treatment. While the Nigerian Constitution
prohibits torture and other inhuman or degrading treatment, the government has
not outlawed chaining. In a 2015 report, the United Nations special rapporteur
on torture said that chaining “unequivocally amount[s] to torture.”
The Nigerian government should ban chaining and urgently
investigate chaining in state-owned rehabilitation centers, psychiatric
hospitals, and faith-based and traditional healing centers in all 36 states and
the Federal Capital Territory. The government should also prioritize the
development of quality, accessible, and affordable community-based mental
health services.
“President Buhari denounced chaining as torture,” ?erimovi?
said. “But it’s not enough to raid these centers and shut them down. People
rescued from these desperate conditions and other Nigerians experiencing
psychological distress should have access to proper psychosocial support and
mental health services.”
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