Recovered from FSRN’s earlier site via the Internet Archive Wayback Machine. Originally published January 10, 2012.
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Bali is usually associated with beautiful beaches and colorful/vibrant local culture, but there’s a side of life on the island that tourists who flock there never see: people with mental illness held for years in chains, cages and even medieval stocks. The practice is known as pasung - literally ‘stocks’ - and it’s common in Indonesia. People are locked up by their own families, forced to eat, sleep and defecate in the same spot while their illness goes untreated. When one of Indonesia’s leading psychiatrists, Dr Luh Suryani, discovered hundreds of patients like this, she decided to do something. FSRN’s Rebecca Henschke went with her on one of her rounds in Karangasem in East Bali.
