Disability is considered not a physical or mental impairment but in fact a spiritual sickness or curse that could either be healed by prayer or by confinement and in some cases Muslim spiritualist camps use medicine to drive the disability curse,Christian prayer camps confine men and women shackled because they each had a mental or physical disability and the chains are part of their treatment along with beating,starvation or worse.They have no access to equipment,education,transport,healthcare or work.As a result many live in abject poverty.The stigma attached to disabled people and their families has shocking consequences including confinement and torture.There are also non-confirmed reports that sacrifices of disabled children take place conducted by so- called '' Fetish priests''.
The Ghanaian government has been called upon to act on these breaches of human rights, not only by Human Rights Watch, but also by the UN special rapporteur on torture, Juan Mendez, who reported that Ghana's treatment of people with psychosocial disabilities - in particular the practices of shackling the mentally ill to trees, depriving them of food or using electroshock therapy without anaesthesia - may constitute torture.
Mendez's report was given to the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva last year, but my journey to Ghana revealed little has been done to address the plight of disabled people.
Watch Sophie Morgan's journey on ''The world's worst place to be disabled'' BBC.
