Living with stigma in Malawi

In November, I spent two weeks working in Malawi, my second trip with the Foundation to the country this year. My first trip back in January was spent listening to people share their experience of living with a disability in one of the poorest countries in the world, and in November I was delivering capacity building training with disabled people’s organizations to increase their collective advocacy and participation skills.

Malawi has one of the world’s lowest per capita incomes, with over half the population living under the poverty line, and like most countries people with a long term illness or disability are far more likely to experience poverty.

We are all familiar with images of people living with physically disabilities in Africa. Most people with serious mobility problems don’t have access to wheelchairs, people with hearing or sight impairments have little or no assistive aids. There are also less visible disabilities, around 11% of the population are HIV positive, so it is no surprise when you are talking to a young woman with a baby and learn that both are HIV positive. But, what we often miss is the strength and resilience of people, everyone I met wanted to strive for something better, to work towards not only improving their own lives, but the lives of others.

Mental health, it is still very much taboo subject associated only with the most severe cases of mental illness, but people did open up about their feelings; the effect that living with an illness or disability had on their life. It is best explained in the words of one man who told me “you cannot expect to have a happy life if you have a disability in Malawi”.
Malawi can seem very different from the UK, and it can be hard to draw comparisons, but listening to peoples stories it is clear that the stigma and discrimination greatest problem that people face. Both in Malawi and in the UK stigma and discrimination have a seriously disabling effect on our life opportunities, increasing our chances of living in poverty and affecting the quality of our life and that of our families.

Superstition, myth and traditional beliefs still hold power in Malawi. There are beliefs that disability can be caused by witchcraft or curses, or because of something bad we or our parents might have done. Exploring the roots of stigma with people exposes the myths and beliefs that are still present deep in the social and moral psyche of their culture. Parents ‘blamed’ for causing disability, or individuals being told they must have done a ‘bad thing’ to be afflicted with a disability.

In the UK it might be easy to rationally dismiss superstition as myth and false beliefs, but really how different is that to the stigma still surrounding mental health in the UK? Attitudes held deep within our society can still attribute blame despite legislation numerous campaigns and education programmes have sought to eradicate stigma. Yet stigma remains a serious reality for people with disabilities and in particular within mental health. Stigma is very much a social justice issue which seems highly resilient to change operating, sometimes subtly within the social and moral psyche of our culture.

Recent blogs by Chris White

• Raising mental health awareness in Malawi will be a long difficult journey - 16 December 2013

About the Author: Chris White

Chris is Policy and Development Officer at the Mental Health Foundation in Scotland. He has personal lived experience of living with mental health condition leading to unemployment and a number of hospital admissions in the past. Chris returned to work 12 years ago working in mental health policy and user involvement.