The torments of Kenya’s mentally ill

SUNDAY WORSHIPPERS at the Holy Ghost Coptic Church of Africa, where services often last for hours, are used to the racket coming from the pews at the back. But it is not the sound of bells ringing or ecstatic chanting. Rather, the clanking comes from chains that shackle Father John Pesa’s “patients”. In Kisumu, Kenya’s third-biggest city, Father Pesa has built a reputation for “spiritually healing” the mentally ill.Others have called it “psychological torture”. Rose Ojwang’s husband sent her 17-year-old son to Father Pesa after the boy began hallucinating and behaving strangely. Like other patients, he was shackled. He grew thin, says Rose, because the church does not feel obliged to feed its wards unless paid to do so. For two years the boy went without proper medical treatment.