A Liberian man was shackled because of his mental illness — and he's not alone

Warning: This story contains descriptions of physical abuse. 

Transcript

Benjamin Ballah doesn't want anyone else to go through what he did.

The Liberian teacher spent 11 months shackled to a log in a church-run healing centre in 2003, where he says he was beaten and starved by people who believed he was possessed by evil spirits. 

"It was terrible," Ballah told As It Happens guest host Peter Armstrong. "They thought there was witchcraft. Sometimes they beat on you, saying that they want to get the evil spirit out of you. They kept me hungry … saying that when he's hungry, then he will say the truth."

But the truth is Ballah wasn't possessed; he was suffering from mental illness — something his family and his community didn't know how to recognize or treat. And according to a new report from Human Rights Watch, his story is not uncommon. 

'An open secret'

The report, called "Living in Chains: Shackling of People with Psychosocial Disabilities Worldwide," identified 60 countries across Asia, Africa, Europe, the Middle East, and the Americas, where people with mental health issues are routinely shackled or confined for months, or even years. 

The report documents almost 800 interviews with people who describe being chained to trees, locked in cages or imprisoned in animal sheds.

Some were shackled in state-run or private institutions; others at home or in religious or traditional healing centres. Many reported being subjected to physical or sexual abuse. Some were as young as 10 years old.

"We have found the practice of shackling across religions, social strata, economic classes, cultures and ethnic group," said lead author Kriti Sharma, senior disability rights researcher at Human Rights Watch. 

In a press release, she called it "a widespread brutal practice that is an open secret in many communities."

The non-profit organization is launching a #BreakTheChains campaign, calling on countries to officially ban the practice of shackling and invest in mental health supports. 

Ballah was 23 when his symptoms started to frighten his family so much they felt they had no choice but to act. 

He was hallucinating, he said, hearing voices, and speaking incoherently. Sometimes he would wander off.

His mother and grandmother were unaware that there was a psychiatric hospital in the Liberian city of Monrovia, Ballah said. They didn't know what to do for him, so they brought him to a local church healing centre.

"When I got there, I was confined to a log, where they chained my legs and I could no longer move," Ballah said. "I had a lot of pain."

Sometimes they would feed him; sometimes they wouldn't. Sometimes they would beat him. Sometimes they would hold him down on his back and force a hot liquid called "devil's incense" down his nostrils.

"It's a terrible moment," he said.

I believe people with mental health conditions should be treated with some kind of dignity.- Benjamin Ballah 

After nearly a year of living under these conditions, his brother came to his rescue.

"He had a conversation with my bishop, and the bishop told him, 'You need to get [him] and carry him to the only psychiatric hospital in Monrovia," Ballah said. 

There, Ballah was diagnosed with depression and treated accordingly. Today, he says he's doing much better. He finished college and works as a classroom instructor, as well as an advocate for the mental health group Cultivation for Users' Hope.

Asked what would have happened to him if his bishop and brother hadn't intervened, he said: "I think you would not have had an opportunity to speak with me, and by this time I would have been gone."

The first step to ending shackling is to make it illegal so that people will be afraid to do it, Ballah says. But the battle doesn't end there.

He says governments need to provide more funding for mental health care, as well as education to combat stigma and misinformation.

"A lot of quote-unquote 'normal' people feel that persons with mental health conditions are of no use, so they feel that if someone has a mental health condition, that person should be shackled. They should no longer be, quote-unquote, 'among the normal people,' like they say in Liberia," he said.

"So when we have more money in mental health and we have people being trained, when we carry awareness into our communities and we train community leaders and our chiefs and all of that, I believe this practice will stop."

Ballah says he now shares his story in the hopes of showing people how effective proper mental heath care can be. 

"I believe people with mental health conditions should be treated with some kind of dignity," he said. 

"If you show some respect to patients with mental health conditions, I believe they can recover and can do better, like in the case of Benjamin today."

Written by Sheena Goodyear with files from Reuters. Interview with Benjamin Ballah produced by Kate Swoger.