- Target:
- Dr.Nimesh Desai, Shahdara Mental Asylum, and the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, Delhi.
- Region:
- India
- Website:
- mindarcs.wordpress.com
Thanks to everyone who signed and supported this campaign. The petition was able to grant the release of Jhilmil B. and this has been a great step for us. We couldn't reply earlier due to some technical problems from our end. this petition is now closed.
In response to the fact that Ms. Jhilmil Breckenridge, being locked up at IHBAS- Institute of Human Behaviour and Allied Sciences, Shahdara, Delhi (also known as Shahdara Mental Asylum) against her consent has alerted and shocked many women who have undergone similar incarceration and emotional trauma. She was picked up by policemen and is in lock up at the asylum.
Ms. Jhilmil, a wonderful, warm, vibrant woman and mother of 4 children, has been forcibly institutionalised in the Shahadara mental asylum. She was becoming 'too difficult' to manage. And this, despite the fact that she has a supportive doctor who has confirmed over many instances throughout communications between her family and friends that she is NOT going through symptoms of mania (she has had a previous diagnosis of Bipolar).
Background, which is hugely facilitating a medico legal charge of insanity: She is in the middle of a difficult divorce - perhaps that explains why she is getting 'too difficult' to manage. Her reactions in any way, from holding her child, to being moody and difficult are being classified as 'mad'. She has asked for help from other authority figures, but they have only been shooed away by statements such as: 'Do not take her words seriously, she is crazy'.
Institutionalizing her is against the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD)
Article 5: Equality and Non-Discrimination
Article 6: Women with Disabilities
Article 10: Right to Life
Article 12: Equal Recognition before the Law
Article 13: Access to Justice
Article 14: Liberty and security of the person
Article 15: Freedom from torture or cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment
Article 16: Freedom from exploitation, violence and abuse
Article 17: Protecting the integrity of the person
Article 19: Living in the community
Article 25: Health
Her case is that of thousands of other women in this country who have had to face atrocities due to laws that continue to function despite the ratification of UNCRPD in 2007. How many, many women have been towed away into asylums on an insanity petition, so that the man can gain custody of children, be irresponsible about alimony, hide domestic violence, and obscure an extra marital affair before the public eye and the eye of justice?
Jhilmil is eminently able to take care of herself, is a yoga teacher, and has a self discipline about her own well being and recovery. She is an inspiration to many regarding recovery and well being.
Her doctor's word is not sufficient for her release when she is being held under a government psychiatrist.
Read supporting documents at: http://mindarcs.wordpress.com/petitions/stop-forced-institutionalization-and-release-jhilmil-breckenridge/
Documents pertaining to CRPD and human rights can be accessed at: http://www2.ohchr.org/english/law/disabilities-convention.htm
We, the undersigned, are calling on the intervention of the Health Ministry and the supporting Ministries to immediately release Jhilmil Breckenridge and put an end to such forms of incarceration.
We believe and know that her story is one in of the millions of women in the world who have undergone similar unfortunate experiences and are constantly having to struggle to fight for their rights every day and fundamentally their right to a life with dignity.
We demand the Ministries should immediately look into how 'legal incapacity' is misused by vested interests and causes harm by institutionalising women.
We, the undersigned, are calling on the said government bodies to take responsibility and step in to stop such unlawful, inhuman and torturous practices, and misused / abused forms of treatment.
- DROP / repeal the provision for divorce and annulment of marriage using the clause of 'unsound mind'
- DROP / repeal the provisions for loss of custody, no right to adoption, and other exclusions found liberally within family law using the clause of 'unsound mind'
- STOP the CONDEMNATION OF ALL WOMEN as such using denial of capacity and incarceration.
The STOP involuntary confinement, treatment of Jhilmil Breckenridge petition to Dr.Nimesh Desai, Shahdara Mental Asylum, and the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, Delhi. was written by MindArcs and is in the category Human Rights at GoPetition.