He entered at eight. He is now 16: Ghana’s children growing up in prayer camps

At eight years old, Hafiz Abdallah was taken to Nyinbonya, a prayer camp in Paga, near Ghana’s border with Burkina Faso. For eight years, his mother says, her son has lived at the facility without a clinical diagnosis. When his behaviour becomes erratic, she says, he is chained.

“He doesn’t even speak, stands often in his own world,” she said. “But this helped me a lot because I am very much assured that he will not wander off and end up getting hurt or killed.” Hafiz became increasingly difficult to manage after the death of his twin brother. He destroyed things, once stole a neighbour’s chicken and often attacked his mother.

She said she did not understand what was wrong with him. “I tried herbal remedies and spent money I did not have. Over eight years, my savings are exhausted.” “Where else do I turn to?

I put my faith in Allah,” she said. Her story points to a wider problem: for some Ghanaian families, the first response to unexplained or disturbing behaviour is not a mental-health clinic but a church, prayer camp or traditional healer. Clinical psychologist and University of Ghana lecturer Emmanuel Asampong says this is partly rooted in how illness is understood.

“We have usually, if you like, relied on what we would say is a biopsychosocial approach to seeking health,” he said. “When things happen to people, and they are not able to explain it easily, then they are quick to attribute it to some spiritual dimension.” For children whose conditions require professional assessment, that can mean being treated elsewhere — sometimes for years. Inside Nyinbonya At Nyinbonya, children and adults were seen walking barefoot.

Some appeared malnourished and disassociated. A child believed to be no more than 10 was being held tightly by an adult. Staff were seen pinching and slapping patients to make them behave or stop screaming.