Mentally ill girl chained for three years

Muhibbur Rahman Sarder, a small-scale farmer from Char Katihari village in Jinari union of Kishoreganj's Hossainpur upazila has difficulty enough in providing for his seven-member family. In particular, looking after his twenty-year-old daughter Fatema is a challenge. She is mentally unwell. It is beyond the family's financial capacity to seek proper treatment. As a result, to prevent her from wandering beyond the house, for her own safety, for the last three years she has been chained.

“To provide treatment for the girl is serious burden on the family,” says the officer-in-charge of Hossainpur police station Md Nannu Mollah. “Her mental illness first manifest when she was in class ten at the local high school. Three years ago her condition became more serious.”

It used to be that Rafiq Sarder, the younger of Muhibbur's two sons, worked for a private company in Dhaka and was able to contribute to the family's income. But an accident three years ago left the father-of-two physically-challenged and unable to work. Muhibbur's elder son Babul Sarder, 40, meanwhile struggles to support his own family of three children on his earnings as a labourer.

To make matters worse another daughter Nazma Akhter, 23, who is Fatema's older sister, also faced a period of mental illness two years ago, soon after she was married. She was sent back to her parental home; though fortunately she is now well again.

“Fatema was treated at local hospitals and by village healers on various occasions, as we could manage,” says her uncle Hobi Sarder, “but she's never had good treatment for her illness and is yet to be cured.”

“The family lives hand to mouth,” says local Jinari union councillor Aminul Islam Makhon. “I organised two disability cards for Fatema and her brother Rafiq six months ago so that they can get food support. But it doesn't help with treatment costs.”

“If any affluent member of society stepped forward,” sobs a distraught Muhibbur, “my daughter might be able to return to her normal life.” Jinari union's chairman Abdus Salam says the council is also thinking about how to organise treatment for Fatema.