How Indonesia's mentally-ill are shackled and forgotten
More than 15,000 Indonesian psychiatric patients are kept in primitive conditions, but a Bali doctor has pioneered more humane treatments
Between rice fields and coconut trees on Indonesia's "paradise" island of Bali, a man lies chained by the ankles to a rotting wooden bed in a garden, staring at roosters tottering by.
I Ketut Lingga, 54, has schizophrenia and is one of more than 15,000 Indonesians with a mental illness who are either chained, caged or placed in primitive stocks, according to health ministry data.
They are known as pasung - which loosely translates to "shackled" - and are considered lost causes.
Lingga's family shackled him 30 years ago, and he has never been unchained since. When he is relaxed, he rarely moves or speaks, but during an episode, his family fears him.
"He attacked me one day, so we had no choice but to chain him up," Lingga's sister-in-law, Wayan Reti, 50, said at her home in eastern Bali's Karangasem district. He ripped off my clothes and tried to strangle me, and he's been shackled ever since. What else could we do?"
While in his early 20s, Lingga began threatening to kill or beat people. He was taken for just three visits to the mental hospital, where he was given medication but no counselling. After that his family could no longer pay the US$15 fee for each visit.
Some 50 pasung exist in Karangasem alone, according to psychiatrist Dr Luh Ketut Suryani, who discovered the extent of the problem early last decade while researching suicide rates.