“Treated Worse than Animals”

Abuses against Women and Girls with Psychosocial or Intellectual Disabilities in Institutions in India

Vidya, a 45-year-old woman was alone at home in Mumbai one night a few years ago when three people knocked on her door. Posing as government health workers conducting vaccinations in the area, they ignored her attempts to resist them, sedated her, and took her away. The next morning, she awoke in a private mental hospital, where she was forced to stay against her will for over a month with virtually no contact with her family or friends and medicated against her will. Without her consent or knowledge, she was also forced to endure electricity passing through her brain in order to induce seizures, a process known as electroconvulsive therapy (ECT). "I was like a vegetable,” she said. “It was only many years later that I found out that I was being given ECT.”

Vidya is perceived as having a psychosocial disability, or mental health condition. She later discovered that her husband had institutionalized her, which he was able to do under the terms of the Mental Health Act without the need for a court order. Even after she was discharged from the mental hospital, her husband continued to take her to a local private clinic where she received electroconvulsive therapy under anesthesia without her knowledge or consent. Vidya claims that her husband wanted to label her as “insane” to be able to get a divorce without paying alimony. Her mother finally managed to get her discharged from the hospital over a month later.

More information on : https://www.hrw.org/report/2014/12/03/treated-worse-animals/abuses-against-women-and-girls-psychosocial-or-intellectual