Overview of content
Survivors and their right to rehabilitation
Refurbished HHRI website
Download the HHRI GBV manual
Dear friends and colleagues,
We congratulate Nadia Murad and Dennis Mukwege warmly as this years’ Nobel Peace Prize Laureates. This great prize was awarded to these brave individuals in Oslo, December 10. Their tireless efforts to put the survivors of gender-based violence (GBV) in war and armed conflict high up on the international agenda, finally succeeded and the world could focus on the hard and brutal reality that women and children in war and conflict face in many places. Both laureates spoke strongly about the atrocities that civilians are exposed to, in particular women and children. They were likewise clear in the claim for justice and reparation for the survivors.
The director of HHRI´s Board, Nora Sveaass, who was awarded ‘s the University of Oslo Human Rights Prize this year, under-lined the importance of this year’s peace prize and that it will, hopefully, bear fruits long into the future:
“The hope is that this year Nobel Peace Prize will strengthen the work of preventing and ending sexual violence against women – both in war and in peacetime. That this prize will contribute so that the responsible perpetrators will be punished, and that the vulnerable women receive the recognition they need as survivors of brutal human rights violations, and that the obligations and promises to provide them the support and assistance they need in terms of rehabilitation, mentally, physically as well as socially, be realised in practice.”
The availability of redress to survivors of GBV after what they have suffered, constitute an important step in re-establishing their dignity and integrity. Recognizing the violations as serious crimes that must be addressed through truth and justice seeking, may form an important platform in the lives of survivors. Both justice and truth must be combined with reparation in form of rehabilitation, such as care and support with regard to physical, psychological or social needs through a wide range of services. The right to a remedy and reparation is articulated as an integrated right that consists of access to justice, reparation, including economic compensation, and rehabilitation.
We have, pursuant to the adoption of General Comment no 3, to article 14 of the Convention Against Torture (https://www2.ohchr.org/english/bodies/cat/docs/GC/CAT-C-GC-3.pdf), been particularly aware of the importance of ensuring psychological support to survivors of rape and other forms of sexual violence, both immediately after the violence, if possible, and as part of a more long term reparation. On this note we remind our readers of the HHRI -GBV manual developed to assist helpers who meet victims of these crimes in situations where specialized services may be scarce. See more information on our manual below.
Refurbished HHRI website
We are also delighted to introduce to you our refurbished and updated website. Our wish is that you will find the new website more intuitive to use and that you easily will find what you are looking for.
Our site contains of three sections where we share information about human right violations and mental health in war and conflict areas.
The Data base: Here you will be able to search for publications by name of publication, by author, by tags or organisation.
The Thematic pages: cover the core topics of mental health and human rights violations in disaster, war, and conflict areas, under relevant headlines.
Our Newsletters: are written with a thematic focus. You will find links according to the content of our theme.
Please try it out and give us some feedback.
All manuals can be downloaded from the MHHRI website
There are three different manuals, which respectively address working with women, with boys and men, and with children who have experienced sexual violence.
The manuals are translated into several languages. The page numbers in each manual remain the same across languages. This allows survivors and helpers to work from copies in their preferred language and read the same content on the same pages. It also makes it easier to teach participants when participants and trainers work in more than one language. The manuals include a toolbox. Survivors can use it individually to regulate their own emotions through grounding exercises or in collaboration with a helper. Helpers can also use grounding exercises to take care of themselves as helpers.
We appreciate feedback and comments
Welcome to our new subscribers, we hope you will find our content useful. The Mental Health and Human Rights Info Newsletter is a newsletter with the aim to provide insight on a certain subject across the scope of our work; human rights violations in war and conflict areas and mental health. Our intention is to deliver a newsletter as a short “lecture” where you can find relevant information regarding a specific subject from a mental health perspective. You will receive our newsletter 5 times a year.
We would appreciate your thoughts and suggestions on other issues you would like to see in this newsletter or if you are planning an event on related issues, please let us know so we can include your event in our newsletter.
If you know anyone who would be interested in receiving this e-newsletter, please forward it, and encourage them to sign up.
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On our MHHRI Facebook page, and on Instagram we are continuously posting new and relevant articles that we add to our website, as well as events and videos. We also just launched our new LinkedIn page!
Sincerely yours,
Take care – and we are wishing you all the best.
Sincerely yours,
Mental Health and Human Rights Info teampost@hhri.orgwww.hhri.org