Humanrights of persons with mental illness

ABSTRACT

The understanding of mental illness has evolved over the years. Right from being thought to be due topossession by evil spirits to the current bio-socio-psychological model of illness, what has remained consistenthowever is the violation of their human rights. Though the efforts to redress this have started from the timesof Pinel, the real focus has been only after the introduction of the various international and regional instrumentsfor protection of human rights. Under these there is a paradigm shift from protecting society from the mentallyill to protecting the mentally ill.