By Iddi Yire
Accra, Dec. 1, GNA – Human Rights Watch (HRW) has urged the Ghanaian government to take immediate steps to end shackling of people with real or perceived mental health conditions.
The HRW report, which was released on Thursday and made available to the Ghana News Agency, urged the Government to enforce the ban on shackling by ensuring that the Visiting Committees and Mental Health Tribunal had adequate resources to carry out their responsibilities and by investing in community mental health services that respect human rights.
It said the government should also ensure that people with psychosocial disabilities get adequate support for housing, independent living, and job training.
It appealed to the Government to follow through on commitments to sensitize traditional and faith-based healers as well as the general public to combat the stigma associated with mental health conditions.
The report said Ghana’s Government had taken inadequate steps to end the chaining and inhumane treatment of people with real or perceived mental health conditions – psychosocial disabilities – in faith-based and traditional healing centres despite a 2017 ban on such treatment.
It said decade after the adoption of the 2012 Mental Health Act, which establishes a structure to provide and monitor health care in Ghana, the Government had only recently established regional Visiting Committees and a Mental Health Tribunal, mandated to monitor implementation of the law and investigate complaints.
“Chaining people with psychosocial disabilities in prayer camps and healing centers is a form of torture,” said Madam Shantha Rau Barriga, Disability Rights Director at HRW.
“Ghana’s newly formed Visiting Committees and Mental Health Tribunal need to ensure that the chains come off and that people have access to local services that respect the rights of people with mental health conditions.”
The report said from November 28 to 30, 2022, Human Rights Watch visited five prayer camps and traditional healing centres in Eastern and Central region and interviewed more than 50 people.
It said these included people with psychosocial disabilities, mental health professionals, staff at prayer camps and traditional healing centers, mental health advocates, religious leaders, and two senior government officials.
The report noted that in all five camps and healing centres visited, Human Rights Watch found that people were chained or confined in small cages, in some cases for more than seven months.
It said during the visits, Human Rights Watch identified more than 60 people were chained or caged, including some children.
It said at Edwuma Wo Wo Ho Herbal Center in Senya Beraku, Human Rights Watch found 22 men closely detained in a dark, stifling room, all of them with chains, no longer than half a meter, around their ankles.
“They are forced to urinate and defecate in a small bucket passed around the room. Despite the sweltering conditions, they are only allowed to bathe every two weeks.”
It said many of them called out to the HRW researchers, begging to be released.
“Please help us,” one man said. “We have a human right to freedom.”
The report said as many as 30 more men were detained in another section, which the traditional healer prohibited HRW researchers from visiting.
It said the herbalist said that they were undergoing special spiritual treatment.
The report said in all five camps, people were held against their will in what amounts to indefinite detention. A 40-year-old man held for more than two months at Mt Horeb Prayer Centre said, “We spend 24/7 locked up in this room. Can you imagine that?”
Another man said, “This Christmas we won’t be going home. We want to go home and be with our family. Help us. Please help us.”
The report said on hearing that the practice of chaining continues, Madam Tinah Mensah, Deputy Minister of Health, said, “With all this education, they’re still chaining?”
It noted that Dr Caroline Amissah, Acting Chief executive of the Mental Health Authority, said, “People with mental health conditions are human beings just like you and me. They are entitled to their rights. A mental health diagnosis is not a death sentence. We should invest in services in the community.”
The report said in all five camps visited, Human Rights Watch witnessed serious human rights abuses, including lack of adequate food, unsanitary conditions, lack of hygiene, lack of freedom of movement, and one case of repeated sexual violence.
It urged the government to set up the levy envisaged under the 2012 Mental Health Act to fund mental health services as a matter of priority.
GNA
KOA/CA
Dec. 1, 2022
Caption:
People with mental conditions in shackles at a traditional healing center
NSOC 014
Social Economy Prayers
Ghana’s economic distress needs intercession-Archbishop
By Daniel Adu Darko
Accra, Dec. 1, GNA – The Most Rt. Rev. Schambach Opoku Amaniampong, the Presiding Archbishop of Schambach International Ministerial Council (SIMC), says intercessory prayers are needed for God to help the nation to survive the economic turmoil.
Archbishop Amaniampong said the clergy were to be the bearer of hope and encouragement with the Word of God.
Engaging the media after the 33rd graduation and ordination ceremony of the Schambach Theological College (STC) to usher 30 graduates into four dimensions of the ministerial business of God, Archbishop Opoku Amaniampong advised the clergy to support the nation in these difficult times with prayers rather than aggravating the situation with comments which tend to plunge the country into chaos.
He said men and women of God, especially the prophets, should be circumspect in divulging revelations about individuals and the nation, which would bring fear and panic in homes and the country.
“I am always careful in delivering any prophecy God has revealed to me about the country. I handled the message with wisdom because one revelation can bring chaos to the nation. I will use this occasion to advise all men and women of God in this country that at this point, Ghana needs prayers for God to help us out of this predicament.”
“We should not say things that will bring calamity into the country. We are already experiencing hardship we need God’s intervention,” Archbishop Amaniampong said.
Archbishop Amaniampong said that the Schambach Theological College (STC) to change the narrative about the business of the Kingdom of God has been training many Pastors, Prophets, Rev. Ministers and Apostles to begin God’s work with the fear of God, intensive prayers, obedience and humility.
He mentioned that the vision of Schambach Theological College was to help men and women of God to carve a good name and do things which were upright before God and mankind.
He also said that Schambach International Ministerial Council was set up to help upcoming men and women of God without fathers in the Kingdom business with advice and direction to change the fake prophets’ tag hanging on the prophetic ministry and other ministries.
“Most of the fake or wayward pastors and prophets do not have fathers to monitor, advise and mentor them. We also have many fathers in the body of Christ in this country that if you are new in the face of the Kingdom of God, you cannot go to their end”.
“…God gave me this vision 20 years ago that I should set up this Council to bring sanity into the prophetic ministry. I have been a prophet for three decades and I have never scammed or engaged in any amorous act with people’s wives or any woman.
The College has trained about 15,000 leaders including Archbishops and Bishops in the work of God both locally and internationally.
GNA