BHRC was proud to host a virtual panel event, Protecting Mental Health and Building Resilience: A Dialogue for Human Rights Defenders, on Thursday 21 July 2022.
As we well know, human rights work demands extraordinary resilience and courage from defenders and practitioners who often work under immense personal risk and pressures which put them at greater risk of anxiety, depression, and PTSD, which can manifest as physical illnesses and adversely impact mental health. These conditions can lead to burnout and drive human rights professionals to exit the human rights field entirely, as the Human Rights Resilience Project has noted. A University of York study has also identified the harmful influence of “strong social and cultural norms about self-sacrifice, heroism, and martyrdom” in human rights work and “the pressure that defenders feel about needing to be (and to appear) ‘brave’”, as well as an “insufficient focus” on mental health in the human rights field.
Through this virtual panel event, BHRC brought into focus the vastly underexplored dimensions of trauma, vulnerability, resilience and wellbeing to the work that we as human rights defenders do. This event, which was chaired by BHRC Executive Committee Member Jodie Blackstock,
- Explored the challenges, personal risks and psychological impacts experienced by those in the human rights field;
- Exchanged good practices in managing scepticism, hopelessness and burnout, proactively managing the emotional toll human rights work can take, and learning how to consciously and positively nourish their commitment to the crucial work that human rights defenders do;
- Highlighted the ways in which human rights defenders can maintain their mental health, build resilience, learn self-care and self-protection strategies, and importantly, create vital spaces for self-reflection to better understand and navigate the risks their work involves.
For this event, we were delighted to welcome:
Nighat Dad, Member of the Oversight Board & Executive Director of the Digital Rights Foundation, Pakistan
Satyajit Gupta, Secretary, IBA Asia Pacific Regional Forum & Member, IBA Wellbeing Taskforce
Dr Sana Hamzeh, Restart Center for Rehabilitation of Victims of Violence and Torture, Lebanon & Physicians for Human Rights
Anjli Parrin, Project of War Crimes and Mass Graves, Human Rights Clinic and Institute, Columbia Law School
Dr Gemma Houldey, Author of The Vulnerable Humanitarian, who will lead a taster workshop within the session on self- and collective care strategies for human rights defenders.
The video recording of this event is available on YouTube. If you would like to be added to the BHRC invitation list for future events in this series, please write to us here with your details.
