Kasibba, a name given to the woman to protect her privacy, is believed to have been human trafficked from Sierra Leone to the UK before the age of five. At the age of seven, she was moved into a psychiatric facility, where she remained for 45 years, for no reason other than her autism.
Kasibba isn’t the only one. In fact, thousands of autistic people and individuals with learning difficulties remain locked up inside this insidious system with little hope of release.
“What was really shocking was it was all legitimized.”
Psychiatry and psychology create horror story upon horror story in their industry of death. Kasibba’s tragic tale is one of them—one that makes it impossible to believe that true patient care is of the slightest interest to the psychiatric establishment.
Kasibba, now in her 50s, was freed after a nine-year struggle by a group that called itself her “escape committee.” Eventually, the Court of Protection ruled she could finally be released.
Psychologist Patsie Staite, who worked to secure Kasibba’s release, told the BBC: “I hadn’t ever seen anyone living in the situation that she was living in. And I think what was really shocking was it was all legitimized.”
Under current legislation, people with learning difficulties may be detained indefinitely.
Out of the more than 2,000 people currently detained due to autism or learning difficulties—200 of whom are children—the average length of detention is five years, with 355 detained for over a decade.
There are many others—too many others—like Kasibba. Take 17-year-old Amelia, who was involuntarily committed and held in isolation for two years for autism. Or Maeve, who spent half of her adult life in detention.
It is, in a word, inhumane.
“[Kasibba] has paid the highest price because of an outdated law which still treats autism as a mental health condition,” Tim Nichols of the National Autistic Society said. “This can never be allowed to happen again.”
Likely, though, this tragic abomination will continue. A new proposed bill would include reforms like a 28-day limit on such detention. But if they can be said to have a “co-occurring mental health condition,” they can be held longer.
Lord James Donnelly Touhig stated that 8 in 10 detained patients with learning difficulties or autism also have other psychiatric “diagnoses” that could be used to justify extending their detention. “There must be concern that the new provisions could simply lead to a continuation of the current intolerable situation,” he said.
“People’s lives should not be ruined in this way.”
“It is a tragedy,” said Jess McGregor, executive director for Adults and Health at Camden Council. “Kasibba shouldn’t have experienced this, but the fact that she did is what motivates us to continue working to prevent it [from] happening to anybody else.”
“Inappropriate detention of people with learning [difficulties] and autistic people in mental health hospitals is still happening and will continue to happen until there is sufficient community support,” said Jacqui Shurlock, head of the Challenging Behaviour Foundation. She explained that Kasibba is now living in her own home, but there are many others like her still trapped in psychiatric facilities.
Lucy Dunstan of Changing Our Lives, a group which fought to gain Kasibba’s release, said that, when she first saw Kasibba through a small window in her cell door, “She was just lying on the settee. It was a very empty room. Her life was completely impoverished.”
“She has the most amazing sense of humour. She’s a beautiful human being,” Kasibba’s current care manager said. “After about two weeks of working [with her] she actually came up and gave me a hug.”
What Kasibba suffered seems criminal, but was completely legal under existing laws.
For 25 years, she lived in solitary confinement. That means, under the UN’s Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners, “the confinement of prisoners for 22 hours or more a day without meaningful human contact,” which is considered a form of torture.
“This deliberate infliction of severe mental pain or suffering may well amount to psychological torture,” said UN Special Rapporteur on Torture Nils Melzer. “Inflicting solitary confinement on those with mental or physical disabilities is prohibited under international law.”
“This is a stark reminder that over 2,000 people with a learning [difficulty] are still locked away out of sight in mental health units, with too many languishing for years on end, with no clear way out,” said Dan Scorer, head of policy and public affairs for Mencap, a charity for individuals with learning difficulties.
“People’s lives should not be ruined in this way, and the traumatic mistreatment and inappropriate detention … must end.”
