Georgina Wabano and her mother cooking traditional food for school children in Peawanuck, ON, December 18, 2019. : © 2019 Daron Donahue

By Shantha Rau Barriga
Nov 15 2021 (IPS)

“Nothing about us without us” – that was the call from the indigenous rights advocate Ghazali Ohorella from the Alifuru people in the Maluku Islands, Indonesia during a panel at the climate summit in Glasgow.

This plea was echoed by many activists from groups marginalized by systemic oppression whom I met at COP26: young activists, women, people with disabilities, older people, refugees, people from the Global South – all of whom are the most affected but have contributed the least to the climate crisis.

These experts spoke firsthand of the impacts of the climate crisis on their communities, the ongoing struggle to have their voices heard, and the concrete actions needed to solve this existential crisis which affects us all.

Worldwide, women farmers make up nearly half of the agricultural labor force, and produce up to 80 percent of food crops in developing nations yet, in many countries, women have less access to resources, such as land rights, credit, markets, education and technology

Instead of shutting out these voices, governments should listen and learn from them.

The slogan I heard from Ohorella has long been used by disability rights advocates and the session reminded me of the negotiations toward the UN treaty on the rights of people with disabilities, which was adopted in 2006.

During that process, I saw firsthand the benefits of inclusion. Governments came to respect and recognize the expertise of people with lived disability experience, which led to major advancements on their rights. It also resulted in changed mindsets, where people with disabilities were no longer seen as objects of charity, but holders of rights.

Fifteen years later, climate activists at COP spoke about the disconnect between the knowledge held by those with lived experience and the governments seated at the table making decisions on their behalf. Activists like Gabriele Peters from British Columbia and Ayakha Melithafa from South Africa urged world leaders to work with them and learn from them.

We should listen to and incorporate this know-how to build the kind of systems change we need to respond to the climate crisis, with equity. For example, involving women in local forest management has had positive effects for both livelihoods and conservation. This is already happening in Indonesia and Brazil.

Worldwide, women farmers make up nearly half of the agricultural labor force, and produce up to 80 percent of food crops in developing nations yet, in many countries, women have less access to resources, such as land rights, credit, markets, education and technology.

By leveling the playing field through legal reforms, targeted investments, and increased women’s meaningful participation, according to Project Drawdown, a resource for climate solutions, farm yields will rise and there is less pressure to deforest. Ensuring that women are included in the design and implementation of climate planning would heighten chances of success.

Overall, lands securely held and managed by Indigenous peoples also have lower rates of deforestation than comparable areas, evidencing their successful forest management practices. Advancing the rights of marginalized groups – an urgency in and of itself – has major climate benefits for the planet.

Not every impact of climate change can be solved with new technologies. Front line communities with deep knowledge of their lands are also carrying out successful adaptation strategies. In Australia, first responders are learning from aboriginal people, who lower the risk of bushfires by reducing fuel levels on the forest floor. In Mexico, farmers hit by increasingly long droughts and diminishing crop yields are developing groundbreaking solutions to restore degraded land to productivity.

In Canada, some First Nations maintain strong traditional food sharing networks that have helped address climate-driven loss of food through sharing harvests with at-risk members of the community, while others have built up community science programs that monitor climate change impacts on their environment.

Frontline communities are also developing healing practices to process grief caused by the permanent loss or alteration of ecological features that once sustained livelihoods and cultural practices. Artists are also leading the movement from artistic expression to policy change. As the climate crisis increasingly takes a toll on mental health, particularly among youth, we should support the arts, culture, and healing advanced by climate and environmental justice and Indigenous rights movements.

Meaningful participation in decision-making processes that affect citizens’ lives is not only a demand, it’s a right. While the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and the Paris Agreement recognize the importance of participation, including “a country-driven, gender-responsive, participatory and fully transparent approach” for adaptation, states (and COP organizers) aren’t meeting these requirements. For Indigenous people, their free, prior, and informed consent is required for implementation to be successful.

As Ridhima Pandey, a youth climate activist from India, told us this week: “If we really want to treat the climate crisis as a crisis, it’s really important for the governments, organizations and activists to all come together, to start taking concrete action.”

Wise words from a 14-year old. Will governments listen?

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Approximately 30 patients stay at Edwuma Wo Woho Herbal Centre, many with mental health conditions. At least half are shackled. Credit: Robin Hammond/Witness Change for Human Rights Watch.

By Kriti Sharma and Shantha Rau Barriga
Dec 16 2020 (IPS)

Long before the Covid-19 pandemic grounded much of the world, lockdown, confinement, violence, and isolation was the daily reality for hundreds of thousands of people with disabilities around the world. Many are locked in sheds, cages, or tethered to trees and are forced to eat, sleep, urinate, and defecate in the same tiny area, sometimes for years. Why? Simply because they have a mental health condition—a psychosocial disability.

This inhumane practice—called “shackling”—occurs because of widespread stigma surrounding mental health and a lack of access to adequate support services, both for those with these disabilities and for their families.

Hundreds of thousands of men, women, and children—some as young as young as 10—have been shackled at least once in their lives in over 60 countries across Asia, Africa, Europe, the Middle East, and Latin America.

While Covid-19 has exposed the importance of psychological wellbeing and the need for connection and support within our communities, it has exacerbated the risk to people with psychosocial disabilities who are often shackled in homes or overcrowded institutions without proper access to food, running water, soap and sanitation, or basic health care.

Hundreds of thousands of men, women, and children—some as young as young as 10—have been shackled at least once in their lives in over 60 countries across Asia, Africa, Europe, the Middle East, and Latin America

In many countries, Covid-19 has disrupted basic services, leading to people being shackled for the very first time or returning to life in chains after having been released.

Sodikin, 34, is one of many whose life has been upended by the pandemic. For more than eight years, he was locked in a tiny, thatched shed—just two meters wide—outside his family home in West Java, Indonesia. Without government services, his family felt they had no choice but to lock him up.

Within this small radius of his life, lit by a solitary lightbulb, Sodikin slept, went to the bathroom, and ate food that his mother would pass to him on plate through a window no larger than the palm of his hand. Over time, his muscles atrophied from the lack of movement.

Despite the odds, once he got access to mental health and other services, Sodikin rebuilt his life. He started to work in a clothing factory stitching boys’ school uniforms—becoming the breadwinner of his family—and even did the call to prayer at his local mosque, a prestigious community role. And the shed in which he was confined for eight years? His family torched it and grew a garden in its place.

Sodikin, a 34-year-old man with a psychosocial disability who was shackled for more than eight years in a tiny shed outside the family home in Cianjur, West Java. Credit: Andrea Star Reese for Human Rights Watch.

But when Covid-19 hit the locality of Cianjur in rural Indonesia, Sodikin’s hard-earned life crumbled. As his community went into lockdown, the factory closed, his daily routine was disrupted and all forms of community-based support were suspended. Sodikin’s family locked him in a room once again.

Michael Njenga, chairperson of the Pan-African Network for Persons with Psychosocial Disabilities, said that “restrictions on movement, such as lockdowns and curfews, have caused a disintegration in available support services.

Even in areas where mental health or other community-based services were available, the government redirected resources to other programs, specifically to address the pandemic. This has had a huge impact in our efforts to reach out to people who could now be locked up in institutions or even shackled within their communities.”

With extended lockdowns, physical distancing, and a widespread disruption in social services, the pandemic has frayed our sense of community and ushered in a looming mental health crisis.

Out of 130 countries that responded to a survey by the World Health Organization, 93 percent reported disruption in psychosocial services. More than 40 percent of countries had a full or partial closure of community-based services. In addition, three-quarters of mental health services in schools and workplaces were disrupted on top of about 60 percent of all therapy and counselling services. And while governments around the world have recognized the need to address mental wellbeing and provide psychosocial support, this has not led to an increase in voluntary services in communities.

Covid-19 marks a turning point for governments to pay greater attention to the importance of mental wellbeing and psychosocial support. Any one of us could experience a mental health crisis or secondary trauma from the uncertainty, fear, anxiety, and distress resulting from isolation, economic hardship, increased family violence, and daily challenges of this pandemic.

But consider what that means for someone whose life is confined to chains. Irrespective of age, gender, ethnicity, socio-economic status, or cultural background, health—including mental health—is one of the most basic and necessary rights of human beings, guaranteed under international law and key to achieving the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals.

As countries look to build back better, governments should focus on those most at risk, including the hundreds of thousands of people with psychosocial disabilities around the world who have lived, and still do live, in chains.

The risks of the pandemic for people who are shackled should be a wake-up call to governments to ban this practice, combat stigma associated with mental health, and develop quality, accessible, and affordable community services, including psychosocial support. Sodikin and countless others deserve a life of dignity, not chains.

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