A/HRC/25/60/Add.1
prayer camps or other residential care facilities, and protect individuals from possible
reprisals;
(h)
Initiate a public awareness campaign to sensitize communities about
mental disability and the Mental Health Act;
(i)
Educate health practitioners, traditional healers, law enforcement
personnel and the judiciary to understand that persons with mental disabilities have
human rights, including the right to autonomy and to be treated with dignity.
105. With regard to psychiatric institutions and prayer camps, the Government
should:
(a)
Regulate, control and supervise health-care practices, with a view to
preventing ill-treatment, and improve the food, shelter and health care provided;
(b)
Prohibit coercive and non-consensual measures, including the restraint
and seclusion of people with mental disabilities, except to prevent harm to the patient
and to others, and then only for the limited time and using the measures strictly
required for that purpose;
(c)
Prohibit non-consensual treatment, such as forced medication and
electroshock procedures (A/63/175, para. 61), guarantee the provision of essential
medicines, including medicine for pain treatment and psychotherapeutic substances of
the most recent generation, in line with the minimum core obligations of the State
with respect to the right to health and the prohibition of torture and inhuman or
degrading treatment;
(d)
Enact laws to prohibit the admission and treatment of children in prayer
camps and ban inhumane practices in prayer camps, involving chaining and
prolonged restraint, mandatory fasting, treatment without free and informed consent
and denial of medication;
(e)
Investigate and prosecute under the criminal law cases of alleged
inhumane practices;
(f)
Recruit more mental health professionals, such as psychiatric doctors
and specialized nurses, so that a higher level of care is delivered to all persons with
mental disabilities, including visits to prayer camps by qualified medical staff;
(g)
Promote deinstitutionalization and, in consultation with the disabled
community, create alternative forms of treatment, especially community-based
treatment and support and including medical care and housing, so that persons can be
discharged from hospitals and prayer camps.
106.
With regard to institutional reform, the Government should:
(a)
Increase the budget of the judiciary, the Office of the Attorney-General
and the Prisons Service so that they can establish effective programmes to address the
numerous challenges facing the criminal justice system;
(b)
Give responsibility and sufficient resources to the Prisons Service to
ensure that there are vehicles available to provide transportation for all inmates (both
those on remand and those who have been sentenced) to court and to hospital when
required, to ensure their right to a speedy trial and to medical treatment;
(c)
Increase the budget of the Ministry of Health so that doctors and
medical staff employed to deliver medical services in places of detention are
independent ofthe Ministry of the Interior;
(d)
Ensure that the Ministry of Health has an operational budget to
implement the Mental Health Act and ensure that the Oversight Committee is
properly funded;
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