Condemned

Robin Hammond

Robin Hammond reveals the neglect, indifference and abuse which many mentally ill people have to endure in parts of Sub-Saharan Africa. This is the first part of a long term project~~According to the World Health Organization (WHO), one in three Somalis suffers from some kind of mental illness.~ ~Wars, famines and natural disasters not only leave the dead to be buried but also the survivors who need to go on living. While many will have come through the crisis with their bodies intact, the same cannot always be said of their minds. In the last 50 years, sub-Saharan Africa has seen more of these crises than anywhere else in the world. Their legacy is an epidemic of mental illness, mostly undiagnosed and with minimal resources to treat it.~~

Conflicts and disasters divert funds away from health and education. For the mentally ill, hospitals become prisons and ignorance results in stigma and neglect. Patients are often physically restrained in both hospitals and homes common superstitions deem mentally ill people possessed by evil spirits. Spiritual healers are regularly employed to ‘deliver’ them from their spiritual captivity and some are starved to deprive the demon inside of nourishment.~~'I’ve spent my career documenting human rights issues but I’ve never come across a more neglected or vulnerable group than the mentally disabled in African countries that are in, or recovering from, crises.' Robin says about his current project.~~While he was covering the independence referendum in Sudan in early 2011, Robin went to Juba Central Prison and was profoundly affected by what he saw. One young man with mental health problems was shackled to a prison floor. He urinated and defecated on the same dirty ground where the prison guards would feed him slops. He was naked. He didn't speak. Robin felt that the only way he could justify photographing this man was if he took up his cause and gave a voice back to someone who had been denied a voice.~~After South Sudan Robin went on to photograph in Uganda, Somalia, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Dadaab refugee camp in north-eastern Kenya. Each of these regions are struggling with their own crisis. What they have in common is a group of people who are routinely neglected and abused.~~Governments, the aid community and entire societies have abandoned these people. With his long term project Condemned Robin hopes to give these people a voice. ~~In order to be able to continue funding this project which he hopes to expand in the West African nations of Cote d’Ivoire, Chad, the Central African Republic and parts of Nigeria Robin has submitted his project to the crowd-funding site Emphas.is where donations can be made.