1st Place
John Stanmeyer, Time

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LOST LIVES-MENTAL HEALTH CRISIS IN ASIA

Locked behind bars and no beds to sleep on, children as young as seven languish at the Edhi Village for the mentally ill located outside Karachi, Pakistan. In Pakistan, the government has all but given up on caring for the mentally ill, having to ask private donors to handle the care. More than 1,000 mentally ill patients live jammed together in the privately funded Karachi commune called Edhi Village, run by the prominent social worker Abdus Sattar Edhi. Iron gates lock the inmates in, some of whom, stark naked, slam their heads against the walls of their dark cells. "Our center is becoming a dumping ground for people who consider mentally ill people as the dirt of society," says Ghazanfar Karim, the complex's overburdened supervisor.