Disability Rights Group (DRG)

&

National Alliance for Access to Justice for People Living with Mental Illness (NAAJMI)

 

Protest

 

The Draconian Mental Health Care Bill

 

Time: Wednesday, 10th October, World Mental Health Day

 

Time:  11 A.M.

 

Venue: In front of Ministry of Health and Family Welfare office,

at Nirman Bhavan, C Wing, New Delhi

 

 

India is home t0 30-40 million people living with psychosocial disabilities or what we refer to as disability caused due to a ‘mental illness’.

 

The archaic Mental Health Act of 1987, an offshoot of the colonial Lunacy Acts, makes people with ‘unsound’ mind non-human! They are not considered to have opinions, wishes or feelings; and cannot act upon their own will, as per laws.

 

The Disability Act of 1995 defines ‘mental illness’ as a disability. India has also ratified the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) that talks about India’s obligation to respect, protect and fulfill the human rights ofALL persons with disabilities.

 

However, the Ministry of Health & Family Welfare seems to be ‘unaware’ of this. Nothing explains why then it has come out with a Mental Health Care (MHC) Bill, while completely failing to include mental health & well being to the Right to Health Act!

 

The draft of the Rights of Persons with Disabilities Bill 2012 recently unveiled by the Ministry of Social Justice & Empowerment (MSJE) guarantees the ‘legal capacity’ and the ‘right to choice’ of all persons with disabilities, including those with psychosocial disabilities. The Ministry of Health has gone drastically against CRPD and the draft Rights of Persons with Disabilities Bill and has advocated for involuntary incarceration and continuing with electric shock treatments and even lobotomies!

 

  • The rights of people with psychosocial disabilities must be governed by the Ministry of Social Justice & Empowerment. Why is the Health Ministry then overstepping its turf? What is the Health Ministry’s motivation?
  • While the draft Rights of Persons with Disabilities Bill of MSJE talks about ‘full legal capacity’, MHC Bill talks about ‘involuntary incarceration’? What is the Government of India’s stand on the issue if two of its Ministries are talking diametrically opposite on this?
  • Involuntary incarceration, over drugging, mental asylums, electric shock treatment and the rampant abuse & exploitation that goes on in the name of psychiatry and mental health goes against the letter of CRPD that India has ratified. What is India’s answer to the international community?

 

WE DEMAND AN IMMEDIATE STOP TO THE PROCESS OF BRINGING A DRACONIAN MENTAL HEALTH CARE BILL