Excellencies, distinguished delegates, members of civil society.
It is my pleasure to be with you today.
My name is Kabale Benon Kitafuna and I am a mental health and human rights advocate from Uganda. Today, I address you as Human Rights Watch's current Marca Bristo Fellow, a fellowship awarded to leading disability rights advocates in honor of the American activist.
Back in 2005, while attending university in Uganda, I experienced psychological distress and sought support. Like many people with psychosocial disabilities, while admitted to a mental health hospital. I was secluded for long hours in a cold room, without any light, toilets, or support.
Globally, people with psychosocial disabilities face stigma, discrimination, and false stereotypes. We face greater risk of abuse such as torture, sexual violence, loss of property, isolation, lack of access to justice, and shackling.
For years, in close collaboration with its partners, Human Rights Watch has documented shackling - the physical restraint of people with psychosocial disabilities, in a confined space. In 60 countries around the world, hundreds of thousands of men, women, and children - some as young as 10 - are chained or locked up, simply because they have a psychosocial disability. Inadequate support and community-based services as well as stigmatizing beliefs perpetuate shackling. People with psychosocial disabilities are often held in overcrowded, filthy rooms, sheds, cages, or animal shelters where they are forced to eat, sleep, urinate, and defecate in the same tiny area. Despite being practiced globally, shackling remains largely invisible as it occurs behind closed doors.
But there is hope. Peer support programs and capacity-building of organizations led by people with lived experience have resulted in the drastic transformation of access to community-based support services. On a personal note, following my seclusion and restraint, I founded the Mental Health Recovery Initiative, a local group providing peer support and raising awareness in Uganda. Human Rights Watch also documented the activities of the Gerstein Crisis Centre, a civil society group in Toronto, Canada, which established rights-based crisis responses, renouncing prevailing forms which involve police or forced hospitalization.
Every country and community has different needs that may require different approaches, but they should always be grounded in a rights-based approach, in line with the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. We call on members of the international community to support the spirit of the convention, to champion making people with psychosocial disabilities the leaders in transforming mental health services.
Thank you.
Kabale Benon Kitafuna, 2025 Marca Bristo Fellow at Human Rights Watch
