Today, on World Mental Health Day, we speak as survivors of attacks, arbitrary detention and kidnapping that we experienced because of our humanitarian work. We also speak as family members who suffer the weight of this violence too.

When the danger is over, the harm is not. The consequences stay with us long after the event has passed. Sometimes others can see it, but often they can’t. Many of us look calm on the outside while carrying fear, grief, anger and a distress that we rarely get the chance to talk about. 

For families of humanitarians who are detained, this is not merely a single event, with a beginning and a clear end. When a loved one is taken, relatives often find themselves having to fill roles or take on new roles in the family, while living with the uncertainty, deep fear and the practical consequences of their absence. Many of us have no room to think about our own mental health until our loved one finally comes home.

For most survivors, the pain and challenges does not end once the event is over or when there is a release. We experience a double burden: carrying both the trauma of our experiences and its aftermath, and the lasting effects on our  families, even more so when they are very young children. 

We need mental health support that can meet us where we are: one that reflects the complexity of what we go through, our circumstances and what we can manage at any given moment. That means professional care that is adapted to our realities, but also mutual support, solidarity, recognition, mentoring, training and supervision, and safe spaces, online and in person, where we can share, listen to others’ stories, or simply be understood. Support should not end once the attack, injury or detention is behind us. It should last as long as we need it, at a pace we can set ourselves.

Programs and services should be available and adapted, contextualized to the reality and the needs of the specific humanitarian workers and their families. 

Humanitarian survivors and their families are experts on what helps and what doesn’t, and our voices should shape Duty of Care policies and crisis management response mechanisms. Our message today is simple: our mental health must be recognised as part of the duty of care owed to humanitarian survivors and to their families affected by violence.

“We are not asking only for compassion. We are asking for a strategy, support networks, coordination, and a collective capacity to act”. 

Global Humanitarian Survivor Network, an international network of humanitarian survivors and their families, supported by Protect Humanitarians.