Christian Werner | Chained In Paradise

Mental sickness, lack of psychiatric hospitals and traditional healers...all come together in a compelling and disturbing documentary on the mentally sick who are chained, caged or tied up by their families,  on the "paradise" island of Bali.

As is common with other nations of the world, Indonesia is unable to provide adequate mental health facilities to those who are in dire need of them, and it's reported that there are 40,000 Indonesians who are afflicted with mental illnesses, and are treated inhumanly. In Bali alone, it's reported that there are 350 cases who are chained like animals...for fear they will wander off, or that they'll hurt someone or themselves. The Balinese call them "pasung"... or "in chains" and consider them to have been 'punished' by the gods..

With the lack of mental health facilities, families refer those mentally sick to traditional healers; the balians, as they're called, number about 8,000 in Bali. There are about four times as many balians as doctors. The balians are traditional healers who play an important part in Bali’s culture by treating physical and mental illness, removing spells and channeling information from the ancestors.

I photographed balians during one of my photo expeditions in Bali, and found them to be a mix of witch doctors and chiropractors, mixing mumbo-jumbo with massage and manipulation. Most of those I've seen had waiting rooms with many patients.

Chained in Paradise still photographs can be viewed on Christian Werner website.

Christian Werner is a freelance multimedia/photojournalist based in Nordstemmen, Germany. H graduated from the photojournalism & documentary photography course at the University of Applied Sciences in Hannover. His interests are social diversity and global political issues. He worked in various countries in Asia, Africa, Eastern Europe and South America, and he's represented by the agency Laif.

Chris McGrath | The Vanishing Dokar

Photo © Chris McGrath-All Rights Reserved

What's a "dokar" you ask?

Well, it's a two-wheeled horse-drawn cart found throughout Indonesia, usually decorated with colorful motifs and bells. Its small horses or ponies often have long tassels attached to their bridle. Typical dokars have bench seating on either side, which can comfortably fit three or four persons...and luggage (and huge bags of rice).

Regretfully, the dokars are on their way to extinction due to other more efficient and modern ways of transport. More than 200 dokars were working in Indonesia's Denpasar region, but only a handful remain these days. Denpasar -as in other large cities- experiences an uncontrolled population causing chronic traffic jams that make it difficult for the dokar to work effectively. Cheaper motorcycles have also made the dokar obsolete.

Chris McGrath has documented these last remaining vehicles in his The Vanishing Dokar in lovely monochrome tones, along with copious information about the photographs as captions.

Chris McGrath is an Australian photographer with Getty Images, specializing in editorial and commercial assignments. He has photographed, four Olympic games, the Paralympics, Commonwealth games, the FIFA World Cup, the Rugby World Cup, the MLB World Series, the Super Bowl, the Daytona 500, US Open Golf, numerous US Open and Australian Open Grand Slams, the 2004 Asian Tsunami, the election of Barack Obama and the earthquake and Tsunami in Japan and the London 2012 Olympics.

He has worked for clients such as Nike, NFL, Coca-Cola, the LPGA, NASCAR and the New York Times, and his images appeared in Stern, Newsweek, Time, Sports Illustrated, The Independent, The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, USA Today, ESPN the magazine, The Guardian, L'Equipe and on daily news and sport websites worldwide.

He currently works in Tokyo, Japan.

Monique Jaques | Miss Muslimah

Photo © Monique Jaques - All Rights Reserved

To counter the gory headlines of the recent current events in the Middle East, the photo essay on Miss Muslimah may be a relief. It's an award competition that seeks to be the opposite of a beauty pageant, and which took place in Yogakarta, Indonesia in 2014. It's for young Muslim women who are judged to have shown dedication, reputation and concern for Islamic values and community development.

With Indonesia being the world’s most populous Muslim-majority nation, the event is popular and is attracting an increasingly international lineup. Entrants from Trinidad, Nigeria, Iran, Tunisia, the United Kingdom and many Southeast Asian countries take part. 

The hijab is a controversial topic amongst Muslims and non-Muslims alike. While the Qur'an requests Muslim women to dress modestly, it does not specifically institute a dress code. However, most Islamic legal systems define modest dressing as covering everything except the face and hands in public. Wives of the Prophet Muhammad are said to have been hidden behind curtains from the rest of the Muslim congregation because his home was constantly visited by people. Muslim women started then to emulate this tradition by wearing veils and face covers.

For more background information and other images, drop by Al Jazeerah America 's High Heels & Hijabs.

Monique Jaques is a photojournalist based in Istanbul, who spent the past four years focused on documenting issues in the Middle East as well as Afghanistan and India. She graduated from New York University's Photography and Imaging program, and was nominated for the Prix Bayeux- Calvados ‘Young Reporter’ award. Her project ‘Growing Up on The Gaza Strip’, was first published in the New York Times. She was selected as one of the recipients of the PROOF Award for the Emerging Photojournalist for her work in Post-War Libya and featured in the Bursa Photography Festival. She was also featured in the Ian Parry Scholarship show in 2009 and received an Honorable Mention for the 2008 New York Photo Awards. Her work has been published by The New York Times, The International Herald Tribune, The Christian Science Monitor, The Economist, GEO, The Guardian, and CNN, among others.