Trauma is the emotional response to very stressful, frightening or distressing events that are difficult to cope with or out of a person’s control. It is a pervasive problem, with lasting adverse effects on the individual’s functioning and mental, physical, social, emotional, and/or spiritual well-being. For more than one, suicide is the only last attempt to flee from their traumatic experience. In most cases, the treatment of trauma needs medical intervention, and the people see their rights restricted for their own good. Trauma and human rights violations frequently go hand in hand and require particular attention by all those working with persons affected or surrounded by trauma.
The FGIP has a long history in seeding and incubating initiatives at the intersection of human rights and trauma. Currently, we are seeding new initiatives on trauma care in Sri Lanka, Ukraine and Belarus.The FGIP has a long history in seeding and incubating initiatives at the intersection of human rights and trauma. Currently, we are seeding new initiatives on trauma care in Sri Lanka, Ukraine and Belarus.
The war in Ukraine has led to unspeakable horrors and probably several hundred thousand
casualties among civilians and military. Estimates indicate that at least 600,000 Ukrainian men and women have had front line experience. These numbers will continue to increase over time. Ukraine will have a huge need of state-of-the art rehabilitation services. This concerns not only the physical consequences of the war but in particular the psychological ones. Serious mental health consequences are not only an issue for the veterans themselves, but also for the direct social environment e.g. spouse, children, friends and neighbors. They affect the whole community. While we estimate that the majority of Ukrainian veterans and non-military combatants will be able to get back on track with life with the help of their social network, but already now probably up to one hundred thousand of the returnees to civil life need long-term professional support. That number will continue to grow as long as the war lasts. The FGIP has been at the forefront of advocating that an adequate support system needs to be established to provide holistic state-of-the-art rehabilitation programs for the veterans and psychosocial support for their immediate network, and in cooperation with governmental (social, health-related, legal) and non-governmental actors and not-for-profit services. Together with the King’s Centre for Military Health Research (KCMHR) at King’s College in London and the Taras Shevchenko University in Kyiv, the FGIP has therefore established, in February 2024, the Veteran Mental Health Center of Excellence (VMHCE) in Kyiv as an academic and clinical base. The VMHCE will focus on three key areas: training, methodological frameworks and research to support Ukraine to build a rights-based, high-quality veteran mental health support system. In May 2024, we have brought together X from X during the conference “Hidden Wounds of War – Trauma, Healing and Recovery among Ukranian Veteran”, organised jointly with the Andrei Sakharove Center for Democratic Development in Lithuania to discuss and brainstorm on the most urgent needs that the VMHCE should address.
The FGIP has a long history in seeding and incubating initiatives at the intersection of human rights and trauma. Currently, we are seeding new initiatives on trauma care in Sri Lanka, Ukraine and Belarus.
Following the full-scale invasion of Russia into the Ukraine in February 2021, and the violent repression of demonstrations in Belarus in the context of the latest presidential elections in August 2020, security forces arbitrarily detained thousands of people and systematically subjected hundreds to torture and other ill-treatment. Prison staff had been ordered to create unbearable conditions for everyone arrested on political reasons. Today, more human rights defenders and political activists are gradually being released in Belarus, and many of them prefer to leave the country, mostly to Lithuania, a country that is already hosting a large community of refugees from the Ukraine. Given the lack of access to trauma care in Lithuania, the FGIP, in August 2022, seeded an in-person crisis center in Vilnius. The role of this Vilnius Psychotrauma Center is to provide specialized mental health care support to Ukrainian and Belarusian refugee communities in Lithuania (currently approximately 80,000 and 48,000 persons respectively), and to function as an interface between these communities and regular mental health care services. It has been opened in partnership with the Vilnius hospital and counts today on three psychiatrists from and one nurse from the Ukraine as well as psychiatrist from Belarus who provide not only mental health support to the Ukrainian and Belarussian refugee community in Lithuania, but also consult the two military rehabilitation centers in Lithuania, which provide rehabilitation to Ukrainian military but do not have a psychological support program. The hospital itself provides the premises for the Center, organizes Lithuanian language courses for our staff, helps with initiating the process of medical registration in Lithuania, and allocates time for a Lithuanian psychiatrist to prescribe medication, as Ukrainian doctors in Lithuania are not allowed to do so according to EU regulations.
