Bolsonaro is destroying mental health care to favour evangelicals

His assault on public mental health services will hurt Black Brazilians the most and benefit evangelical centres.

It was almost noon when Mateus, a 15-year-old Black boy ran down a field until he reached the highway crossing the city of Itamonte in the Brazilian state of Minas Gerais, and continued along the borders of the Itatiaia mountains towards Rio de Janeiro. Mateus remembers running non-stop on the hot asphalt for more than 40 minutes until a silver pick-up truck pulled up to the curb next to him. The truck bore the logo of the Teenage Challenge Therapeutic Community of Maanaim, where he had been detained for nearly nine months of mental health “treatment”. A man grabbed him, wrestled him into the car, and in less than 15 minutes, they were back at the institution. As soon as the truck parked, Mateus was taken to a small room and punished for running away, as he told Agencia Publica. The beating was loud enough for the other teenagers in the institution to hear Mateus’s cries for help. He was then forcibly given antipsychotic and sedative medication.