Ghana

Ghana's galamsey (illegal gold mining) crisis is a masculine emergency hiding in plain sight. Hundreds of thousands of men, many of them teenagers, dig through mercury-contaminated soil with bare hands, searching for gold that might yield a few hundred cedis while destroying their health and their country's waterways. These men aren't criminals by nature — they're providers in an economy where legal employment can't sustain a family with the extended obligations that Ghanaian culture demands. The "big man" must provide school fees for nephews, funeral contributions for distant relatives, and financial support for aging parents — expectations that multiply income requirements beyond what formal employment can deliver.

The prayer camp phenomenon reveals the desperation of Ghanaian men's mental health crisis. Across the country, men with mental illness are chained to trees and walls in spiritual healing camps where pastors and traditional priests attempt to treat conditions that require clinical intervention. The men in these camps — some chained for years — represent the extreme end of a culture that interprets psychological distress as spiritual warfare. The Pentecostal and charismatic church explosion has added another dimension: prosperity gospel theology tells men that their poverty is a faith failure, turning economic hardship into spiritual shame and making it even harder for men to seek the secular help they need.