Indonesia - A 50-year-old man sat quietly on top of a large stone, resting against the brick wall of a modest home in Paringan village, Ponorogo, East Java.
He smiled at Ponorogo Deputy Regent Yuni Widyaningsih, who was walking in his direction.
The man, Supri, had nowhere to go as a chain had rendered him immobile outside of his parents’ home for more than two decades.
Supri was one of the first of 81 schizophrenic patients in Ponorogo to be released from confinement earlier this week and would soon be taken to a mental health facility to receive proper treatment.
Supri, like others in his village suffering from mental problems, had been placed in shackles simply because it was considered normal practice in the poor village.
The Ponorogo administration, however, is determined to put an end to this practice.
“Let’s stop calling Ponorogo a ‘village of idiots’. We exposed this practice to the media because we want it to end,” Yuni told reporters on Tuesday.
In 2009, a village in Ponorogo, Karang Patihan, made headlines after it was reported that 111 people in the area, aged between 5 and 40, were diagnosed with mental disabilities. Local doctors said the problems had resulted from severe malnutrition.
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Category(s):Mental Health in Asia
Source material from Jakarta Post
