April-May 2026

Table of Contents

SPECIAL COMMEMORATIVE DAY FOCUS

Special Focus: UN Day, International Mother Earth Day

When Mother Earth Sends Us A Message. April 22, 2026.
Mother Earth is clearly urging a call to action. Nature is suffering. Oceans filling with plastic and turning more acidic. Extreme heat, wildfires and floods, have affected millions of people. Climate change, man-made changes to nature as well as crimes that disrupt biodiversity, such as deforestation, land-use change, intensified agriculture and livestock production or the growing illegal wildlife trade, can accelerate the speed of destruction of the planet.
That is why we need to recover our ecosystems. Ecosystems support all life on Earth. The healthier our ecosystems are, the healthier the planet – and its people. Restoring our damaged ecosystems will help to end poverty, combat climate change and prevent mass extinction. But we will only succeed if everyone plays a part.
For this International Mother Earth Day, let’s remind ourselves – more than ever – that we need a shift to a more sustainable economy that works for both people and the planet. Let’s promote harmony with nature and the Earth. Join the global movement to restore our world!

UN COMMEMORATIVE DAYS – April

• April 7  – International Day of Reflection on the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda.
• April 8  – International Roma Day
• April 22 – International Mother Earth Day
• May 3 – World Press Freedom Day
• May 16 – International Day of Living Together in Peace
• May 17 – International Day Against Homophobia, Transphobia, and Biphobia (IDAHOBIT)
• May 25 – Missing Children’s Day

GNPHR NEWS AND EVENTS

The GNPHR does have a LinkedIn page: https://www.linkedin.com/company/global-network-of-psychologists-for-human-rights/

See the GNPHR greeting video for Human Rights Day and the International Council of Psychologists’ ICP Day

The GNPHR Writing project

*NEW* The GNPHR invites your involvement at the intersection of psychology and human rights. We are soliciting short, pithy pieces that will raise issues, encourage reflection, and suggest new ideas and actions on how psychology matters to human rights and how human rights matter to psychology. Would you like to join the writing project? Read the contributor guidelines, select a topic, and send your proposed topic or any questions to GNPHR at writing@humanrightspsychology.org

Webinars 

May 21, 10:00 am EDT/ 4:00 pm CEST
Critical Human Rights Approach to Applied Psychology

Register here: https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_GGhBvD_pS9CTgRomlu4UJw#/registration

General

The Four Freedoms Awards ceremony took place on 16 April 2026.
On Thursday 16 April 2026, the Four Freedoms Awards ceremony took place in the Abbey of Middelburg. The International Four Freedoms Award was presented to President Volodymyr Zelensky and the people of Ukraine, in recognition of their courage and resilience in their struggle for freedom and independence since the large-scale Russian invasion in 2022. It was a special honour to welcome President Zelensky to Middelburg, where he received the award from Prime Minister Rob Jetten. The Freedom from Fear Award was awarded to Gisèle Pelicot for her efforts to drive behavioural change and increase public understanding of sexual violence. The Freedom of Speech Award went to the Committee to Protect Journalists for their ongoing commitment to ensuring journalists around the world can work safely and freely. Isidora Uribe Silva received the Freedom from Want Award for her work on inclusion, equal rights, and gender equality. The laureate for Freedom of Worship remained anonymous this year for reasons of personal safety. The Youth for Freedom Award was presented for the first time: an award for young people in the Netherlands who are committed to freedom and human rights. The award went to Deel de Duif [Share the Dove]. After the ceremony, the Four Freedoms Meet-up took place, where more than 400 young people engaged in conversations with the laureates about current issues related to freedom and human rights. 

Academic Freedom / Freedom of Expression

VS laten hoofdstuk over diversiteit schrappen in boek. Nederlandse redacteur: ‘Zo komen we in wurggreep van de staat’ [US orders chapter on diversity to be scrapped from book. Dutch editor: ‘This puts us in the stranglehold of the state’]. Joost van Egmond, Trouw, 9 april 2026. Translation DeepL: ‘Those who aren’t aware of it might not notice, but the book *Home Engagement in Diplomacy: Global Affairs and Domestic Publics* is missing a chapter. It dealt with how a U.S. diplomatic agency under former President Joe Biden implemented diversity, equity, and inclusion. After those concepts were declared taboo by current President Donald Trump, the agency attempted to block the book’s publication. “Things are happening in the U.S. now that I’ve seen before in China,” says Jan Melissen, who co-edited the book. He conducts research on diplomacy at the universities of Leiden and Antwerp.’

Meta shuts down global accounts linked to abortion advice and queer content. Alisha Down, The Guardian, December 2025. More than 50 organisations report sites being restricted or removed, with abortion hotlines blocked and posts showing non-explicit nudity triggering warnings. Meta has removed or restricted dozens of accounts belonging to abortion access providers, queer groups and reproductive health organisations in the past weeks in what campaigner call one of the “biggest waves of censorship” on its platforms in years.

Advocacy / Activism

Verantwortung – Wirkmächtigkeit – Ausbildung – Gefahr – Solidarität. Zur Rolle der Psychologie in gesellschaftlichen und politischen Diskursen. [Responsibility – Influence – Education – Danger – Solidarity: On the role of psychology in social and political discourse]. On March 26 and 27, a conference at the Psychological University Berlin, brought together over 80 psychologists, mostly researchers, representing a range of ages, career stages and areas in psychology. During this conference, there was spirited discussions about the role of psychology in socio-political discourse and decision-making processes. There was concensus that psychologists should take a more visible, stronger, and impactful role in addressing challenges facing society—particularly in light of rising anti-democratic and anti-science tendencies. The conference discussions yielded the following key insights and recommendations:
1. Individual Psychologists in research and practice—as well as the German Society for Psychology in its capacity as a professional association—bear a responsibility for the dissemination and application of scientific psychology for the benefit of individuals and society; (DGPs Statutes, §2). Academic psychology is not merely a science dedicated to generating knowledge; rather, psychologists and psychology associations should assume an active role in dialog with policymakers/politics and the public, contributing to shaping societal developments.
2. To enhance the impact of psychology, political planning and decision-making processes should be informed by psychological evidence in a more systematic and sustainable way. Psychological expertise is currently underrepresented, particularly within advisory expert panels and in research institutes closely affiliated with the political issues. As a professional association, the DGPs is called upon to actively advocate for the expansion of knowledge-transfer structures and for the better integration of psychologists into professional advisory frameworks.
3. Undergraduate and graduate programs in psychology should place a stronger emphasis on
fostering political engagement and communication competence. Current psychology curricula are heavily oriented toward research. To empower students to engage effectively in socio-political matters, educational programs should place greater emphasis on providing an understanding of political processes, and on cultivating social and communicative skills through practical exercises. Increasing student diversity is also a desirable goal and could contribute to this end.
4. Hostility directed at researchers and scientific institutions poses a growing threat to academic freedom. Academic freedom, a commitment to truth, and pluralism are indispensable prerequisites for the advancement of knowledge and must be resolutely defended. In Germany, too, psychologists are already reporting verbal attacks and threats.
5. We encourage solidarity and moral courage in responding to personal attacks on colleagues. Solidarity within the professional community serves as a safeguard against hostility toward science. The active resistance of many—as well as the establishment of support systems within the DGPs—can make a significant contribution to fostering a supportive professional community. Concretely, this means looking out for one another, listening attentively, and engaging in dialogue, but also publicly speaking out against acts of hostility.

Children, Youth, Families

The failure to protect the rights and needs of children in Gaza.
Bessell, S., & O’Sullivan, C. Frontiers in Public Health. 2026. Over the past 80 years, international human rights and humanitarian law have emphasized the protection of children during war and conflict as one key principles of international humanitarian and human rights law. The assaults on Gaza, following the Hamas attacks on Israel on 7 October 2023, have resulted in shocking violations of children’s human rights. Two factors make Gaza an extraordinary example of such breaches of international law. First, the depth and extent of rights violations and the pain and destruction to which children are being subjected. Second, that those violations are playing out in full view of the world through both traditional and social media. In this paper, we provide a narrative review, showing the extent to which children’s basic needs and human rights have been violated. We then undertake a socio-ecological analysis of the extent to which socio-ecosystems that can support children have been damaged. We argue that the failure of international action to protect children in Gaza is more egregious because violations have been live-streamed around the world and carried out in full view of a global audience. Moreover, while the violations against children in Gaza represent breaches of those children’s human rights and cast doubt over the ability and preparedness of the international community to protect children’s human rights anywhere.

In Eastern Chad, Play and Movement Help Refugee Children Heal from Conflict. UN Office for Partnerships, 31 March 2026. In eastern Chad, refugee children rediscover calm through play—often their first moment of safety since fleeing violence in Sudan. In a simple open space in eastern Chad, children play, move and laugh in small groups. For many, it is the first moment of calm they have known since fleeing violence across the border from Sudan. After months of displacement, loss and fear, they are beginning to recover a sense of safety and connection. Wadi Fira province in eastern Chad—where many of these children have arrived—is among the areas most affected by the recent inflows of Sudanese refugees. Humanitarian needs have surged since mid April 2025, when intensified fighting and attacks in Darfur forced families to flee. Many of the new arrivals are children, among them unaccompanied and separated minors who have faced traumatic experiences both before and during their displacement. Without timely support, they are particularly vulnerable to distress, anxiety, depression and social withdrawal. The children’s activities are part of TeamUp, a movement based psychosocial support programme now being implemented across Wadi Fira province. TeamUp is one of the first evidenced-based interventions under the Greentree Acceleration Plan, a new United Nations initiative to expand mental health and psychosocial support in humanitarian crises worldwide.

Who Will Raise the Child? Agony Engraved in Stone. Terry Repak, Substack, March 27, 2026. Whenever I pass through the Atlanta airport, I have to visit the Shona stone sculptures from Zimbabwe in the transit tunnel. One in particular haunts me, as does its title: “Who Will Raise The Child?” The artist who carved it, Gladman Zinyeka, was marked by AIDS throughout his short life. Separated from his parents on account of the civil war in Zimbabwe, he began sculpting under the tutelage of other artists in 1985. He died in 2001 just before anti-retroviral medications (ARVs) became available for AIDS treatment on a wide scale. The suspected cause of his death was AIDS. His question, “Who Will Raise the Child,” was echoed by countless numbers of parents in African countries in the 1990s when the AIDS epidemic was at its worst. Millions of children orphaned by the disease were left to be raised by grandparents, uncles, aunts and siblings. As a young mother myself when we lived in Ivory Coast in the 1990s, I could only imagine the despair of mothers and fathers with HIV who were tormented by the question (read the rest of this blog here: https://terryrepak.substack.com/p/who-will-raise-the-childtriedRedirect=true).

Crimes Against Humanity

Democracy 

Everyone Agrees That Freedom is Kind of Swell. Maximilian Steinbeis, Verfassungsblog, 13 March 2026. Left-wing bookshops applying for an award handed out by the Federal Government Commissioner for Culture? Striving to be honoured by the German state for their service to the good, the true and the beautiful? Does the current Commissioner, Wolfram Weimer, now in hot water for his decision to strike those left-wing bookshops off the winners’ list, even realise how amazing this is? Truly left-wing bookshops, mind you. Shelves crammed with the classics of revolutionary theory and practice. Bookshops like that are livid about the fact that the Federal Government doesn’t deem their efforts prizeworthy, and are taking the matter to court! How much more disarmingly faithful in the virtues of liberal democracy can you be? Weimer, the Federal Government’s Commissioner for Culture, had passed the jury’s selection on to Germany’s domestic intelligence service to filter out those bookshops it had any “relevant findings” about. That he was  not allowed to do , as the Federal Constitutional Protection Act provides no legal basis for it. But quite apart from whether what the minister did was legally or even politically defensible or not – what seems lacking to me in large parts of Germany’s liberal public sphere, and not least in liberal German legal scholarship, is a willingness to reflect on what is happening to liberal German democracy here. The Right seeks to preserve, the Left to change power relations, and liberal democracy keeps this conflict productive and permanent. Both sides – those who hold power and those subject to it – bind themselves to rights and invoke them. Property rights and freedom of contract on one side; on the other, minority rights, rights of participation and human rights. Anyone who disregards the other side’s rights while demanding respect for their own ends up in self-contradiction and is thus, in the end, weakening their own position. That makes behaviour predictable and enables trust, thereby stabilising liberal democracy and keeping it in motion. People keep talking and negotiating, the Right becomes less right-wing and the Left less left-wing, political conflict is dissolved in legally ordered procedures, and ultimately nearly everyone is, in one way or another, liberal.
Now, this liberal mainstream certainly has always been far more exclusionary, privileging and privileged than it usually likes to admit. Liberal as opposed to what? The liberal mainstream becomes oppressive when there is virtually no room left not to belong to it. I fully agree with Philip Manow and other apologists for populism who are making that point. I don’t, however, when it comes to the conclusion that the strategy to exploit this situation to build an authoritarian regime is nothing but a self-serving liberal fantasy.

Displaced/ Migrants/ Refugees/ Stateless

Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh should be allowed to work. Shamsul Haque, Zinnatul Borak, The Lancet Psychiatry, 13/5, p.441-444, May 2026 Bangladesh hosts approximately 1·2 million refugees who have been forcibly displaced from Rakhine State, Myanmar. These refugees are resettled in crowded camps in Coxs Bazar and Bhasan Char, and face severe hardships due to scarce resources and uncertainty as to whether they will ever be able to return home. Because of premigration trauma and current daily stressors, many of these refugees have symptoms of mental ill health. A 2021 study found that 113 (41%) of 276 Rohingya refugees who had temporary paid jobs and 430 (48%) of 889 non-working refugees from eight camps in Cox's Bazar had severe symptoms of post-traumatic stress. A 2017 study of 148 adult Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh found that 89% had symptoms consistent with depression, 36% showed signs typical of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), and 13% reported suicidal thoughts. Economic opportunity is an important protective factor of refugee mental health. Of 50 Syrian refugee women residing in non-camp settings in Jordan who reported suicidal behaviour, 43 (86%) reported poverty as a major post-displacement stressor. Syrian refugees with consistent jobs in Türkiye were found to have significantly lower rates of depression, anxiety, and PTSD, and a better quality of life than those who were unemployed. Unemployment has emerged as a prominent risk factor for mental ill health in other refugee communities: Syrian refugees living in Lebanon, Istanbul, and Canada; Rwandan refugees in Zambia; Bhutanese refugees in the USA and Canada; and Eritrean refugees in Ethiopia.

Inclusion, Exclusion, Racism

Report Project Commemoration of the Abolition of Slavery 2023/2024. The impact of the history of slavery on science, practice, and education in mental healthcare. Nederlands Instituut van Psychologen.2025. This document outlines an initiative by psychologists, psychiatrists, and pedagogical professionals to address the ongoing psychological and societal impacts of slavery, the slave trade, and colonialism. It situates the effort within the historical context of the abolition of slavery in the Netherlands, noting its phased nature and the continuation of forced labor until 1873, as well as the broader legacy of exploitation and inequality. The text emphasizes that the psychological effects of this history remain visible at both individual and societal levels, including transgenerational trauma and enduring social inequalities. It highlights a lack of attention within psychology, psychiatry, and pedagogy to these legacies, particularly in education, diagnostic frameworks, and professional practice. The initiative’s mission is to promote awareness and recognition of these impacts, with a focus on integrating this knowledge into professional training and practice. Its objectives include increasing understanding of the psychological and social consequences of colonialism and slavery, encouraging more contextually and historically informed approaches in mental health care, and fostering critical reflection on existing Western diagnostic and treatment models.

Mental Health and Human Rights

Designing evidence-based digital mental health check-ins in higher education.
Westley, M., Laffier, J., Rehman, A., Eriksen, G., Sønderby, R., & Sørdahl, M. Academia Mental Health and Well-Being, 3(1). 2026. Introduction: Due to the urgent need for more sustainable support for post-secondary student mental health, many institutions are exploring alternative ideas for intervention, such as the role of technology, including artificial intelligence (AI) and wellness apps. However, if technological programs or devices are used for student mental health, their design and delivery should align with research on student well-being, best practices in psychological interventions, and learning theories. Materials and methods: This study used a case study approach to examine how cognitive, industrial, and positive psychology principles can inform the design and delivery of mental health apps and programs. An emerging platform from Denmark, StudentPulse, which has students complete mental health check-ins, was examined using a comparison analysis approach between design features and research on post-secondary wellness and learning. Results: The analysis revealed how the platform’s features are rooted in three areas of psychological wellness: cognitive, positive, and industrial. This included design features such as AI-trained responses for students that provide immediate feedback, choice, reflection, and flourishing questions. The feedback design is based on cognitive principles of retention, attention, and motivation. Conclusions: As post-secondary institutions continue to adopt technological tools that support student mental health, these tools must be grounded in psychological principles to ensure they minimize harm and promote student wellness. The study recommends that wellness-based technologies incorporate evidence-based research in mental health, learning, and psychology in their design and implementation.

Dignity and mental health in Latin America: Peruvian observations and perspectives. Alarcón, R. D., & Matos-Retamozo, L. Academia Mental Health and Well-Being, 3(1). 2026. This is a concise literature-based delineation of dignity and its connections with important mental health issues in the Latin American continent. This review examines the relationship between dignity and mental health in Latin America, focusing mostly on Peruvian socio-cultural studies and clinical perspectives. Drawing on published literature, an introductory geographic description and a historical narrative supported by socio-demographic data and cultural realities of the region, the review explores how dignity is shaped by cultural identity and by the mestizaje process as a decisive ontological feature. A series of seven cases covering different aspects of the impact of clinical events on the dignity of the protagonists is presented. Dignity is explored from the perspective of native healers, mothers and human rights principles, as well as its fragility in the face of socio-political, racism-induced conflicts, and sectarian/religious deformations. The difficulties faced in overcoming reductionistic and alienating influences, as well as social inequalities affecting dignity, are discussed. The review emphasizes, in turn, its consideration as one of the central issues of psychotherapeutic approaches and much-needed investigation projects.

Visible wounds, invisible rights: Mental health and psychosocial support for male Yazidi former child soldiers in northern Iraq. Serhat Yildirim, Norma C. Ware, Jan Ilhan Kizilhan, et.al., The International Review of the Red Cross, Cambridge University Press, 01 April 2026. In 2014, the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria targeted the Yazidi ethno-religious minority in Sinjar, northern Iraq, abducting Yazidi boys aged 8 to 14 who endured violence, family separation and significant trauma exposure. Upon return, these children needed mental health care. This study investigates the availability of mental health services for male Yazidi former CAAFAGs (children associated with armed forces and armed groups) and discusses their rights under international legal frameworks. The study used a convergent mixed-methods design involving male Yazidi former CAAFAGs and mental health providers in the Sinjar district and the Duhok governorate. Quantitative data were collected through a descriptive survey of thirty CAAFAGs and ten providers. Qualitative insights from semi-structured interviews with ten CAAFAGs and ten providers expanded on these findings, and the results were integrated into a joint display for interpretation. Among the thirty CAAFAGs, 70% had not received any mental health care since their captivity. After captivity, 33% wanted (personal desire) mental health care; of those who wanted care, 80% received services through non-governmental organizations (NGOs). In contrast to this “personal desire” for care, 96.7% of male Yazidi former CAAFAGs acknowledged that they are in need of mental health care, yet only one is currently seeking it. Qualitative data revealed a gap in mental health and psychosocial support (MHPSS) services specifically for male CAAFAGs, as NGOs focused more on female survivors. It also identified financial, personnel and logistical challenges for NGOs, as well as discrepancies between CAAFAGs and providers regarding perceived willingness to receive mental health care.

Integrating support for caregiver mental health into health and social systems. Marilyn Nahun and Thayná E T Tomiyoshi, The Lancet Global Health.2026. UNICEF’s Caring for the Caregiver (CFC) package is a prevention intervention designed to address this gap. Delivered by non-specialist frontline workers, CFC aims to prevent caregiver psychological distress and social isolation by targeting their emotional (ie, self-care, coping skills) and social (ie, family cohesion, conflict resolution) awareness. Stephanie Redinger and colleagues’ study in The Lancet Global Health provides the first evaluation of CFC’s impact on caregiver mental health, social support, and parenting stress in the first 5 years of life. 3 Working in partnership with UNICEF and ministries responsible for health, education, and social welfare, researchers led a non-randomised pre–post intervention evaluation in six LMICs: Bhutan, Brazil, Rwanda, Serbia, Sierra Leone, and Zambia. Frontline workers—ranging from lay counsellors to community health workers to nurses—delivered 1–2-h monthly home visits over the 3–6-month evaluation period, dependent on caregiver need, routine home visiting schedules, and time available for research. Across all study countries, the CFC package resulted in higher caregiver self-efficacy and social support, as well as lower depression, anxiety, and parenting stress compared with baseline levels. While findings should be interpreted cautiously given the methodological limitations of the study (eg, absence of control group), it is worth acknowledging the critical contributions of this
work and discussing its implications.

Peace, Violence and War 

Iran

Iranians trapped between two fires. Samrad Ghane, Clinical Psychologist & Psychotherapist, LinkedIn, March 14, 2026.  Like many other Iranians, I feel deeply tormented by the recent developments in my country. And although I’ve been avoiding this platform for months, I feel an urge to speak out on the current situation. Today, ordinary Iranians inside the country are being crushed by two evil forces, with each claiming to protect Iranians against the other: the Iranian regime’s barbarism and the US-Israeli hyper-imperialism. This (geo-) political landscape has proven confusing and difficult to navigate for many well-intentioned observers. Some friends and commentators have stumbled badly, unable to arrive at a stance that fully honours the rights and dignity of Iranians inside the country.

Lethal conflict after group fission in wild chimpanzees. Aaron A. Sandel, SCIENCE, Vol 392, Issue 6794, 9 Apr 2026. War and other forms of collective violence have shaped human societies for millennia, yet their origins and mechanisms are debated .A prominent line of research suggests that ethnicity, religion, language, and other cultural markers anchor group identities and motivate cooperation within groups and hostility toward outsiders. This cultural marker hypothesis, however, struggles to explain how group identities reconfigure to produce hostility within previously cohesive communities, as occurs in rebellions and civil wars. An alternative framework suggests that shifting interpersonal ties and local rivalries are sufficient to fracture groups and generate collective violence, independent of cultural markers. This relational dynamics hypothesis is consistent with ethnographic and experimental evidence showing that in-group versus out-group biases can emerge rapidly from changing social contexts and even arbitrary divisions.

The psychology of offensive and defensive intergroup violence: Preregistered insights from 58 countries. Jonas R. Kunst, Tomasz Besta, Michal Jaśkiewic, and Milan Obaidi, PNAS, March 24, 2026. Evolutionary theory and historical evidence suggest humans possess distinct psychological tendencies for defensive and offensive violence, which have insufficiently been considered in research. In a large-scale preregistered study across 58 countries (N = 18,128), we demonstrate that violent extremist intentions manifest along two distinct psychological phenomena: defensive extremism, motivated by protecting one’s group from (perceived) threats, and offensive extremism, driven by establishing group dominance. We show that these dimensions a) can be reliably differentiated across diverse cultural contexts, b) are distinctively associated with psychological dispositions, and c) systematically differentiate countries varying in macrolevel sociopolitical functioning and violence. Across nations, a two-factorial structure was observed that was invariant at the scalar level. Defensive extremist intentions were consistently higher than offensive extremism in 56 out of 58 countries, suggesting greater moral acceptance of protective violence. While psychopathy was positively related to both types of violent extremist intentions, those high in Machiavellianism and narcissism demonstrated particularly higher levels of defensive extremist intentions. By contrast, those scoring high on religious fundamentalism and social dominance orientation demonstrated particularly higher levels of offensive extremist intentions. Unexpectedly, liberal political group identification was associated with higher offensive but lower defensive extremist intentions. Crucially, offensive (but not defensive) intentions were associated with macrolevel societal dysfunction, including political terror and internal conflict. These findings establish that defensive and offensive violent extremist intentions represent two conceptually different forms of extremism across a large.

Women

Scars of conflict: trauma exposure, depression, and vulnerability in Kashmiri women. Imtiaz, M., Jamwal, C., Khan, A. F., &amp; Dar, M. M. Academia Mental Health and Well-Being, 3(2), 2026. Introduction: In conflict-affected regions like Kashmir, women are frequently exposed to multiple traumatic events, increasing their risk for psychiatric disorders. Trauma is often underrecognized in clinical settings, limiting opportunities for gender-sensitive, trauma-informed interventions. This study aimed to: (1) quantify and characterize traumatic life events among women attending a tertiary mental health facility in Kashmir. (2) examine associations between cumulative trauma burden and psychiatric diagnoses, particularly major depressive disorder (MDD) and trauma-related disorders. (3) identify sociodemographic factors contributing to psychiatric vulnerability. Materials and methods: In this cross-sectional study, 300 women aged ≥ 18 years attending a women’s mental health clinic were assessed. Diagnoses were established using the Mini International Neuropsychiatric Interview (M.I.N.I. 7.0.2, DSM-5). Cumulative trauma burden was measured with the Life Events Checklist for DSM-5 (LEC-5). Sociodemographic data were collected using a semi-structured proforma. Analyses included Chi-square tests, logistic regression, and cluster analysis. Results: MDD (59.3%), bipolar disorder (11.7%), and trauma-related disorders (11%) were the most common diagnoses. Over one-third reported more than 11 traumatic events, most frequently natural disasters (95%) and war-zone exposure (66.6%). High cumulative trauma burden was strongly associated with MDD and trauma-related disorders. Older age, marital status, illiteracy, unemployment, and high trauma burden significantly predicted adverse psychiatric outcomes (p < 0.001). Cluster analysis identified two profiles: high trauma burden with depression, and lower trauma exposure with relatively stable outcomes. Conclusions: Cumulative trauma burden and sociodemographic vulnerabilities substantially influence women’s mental health in conflict settings, underscoring the need for trauma-informed, gender-sensitive clinical assessments, interventions, and community-based mental health programs.

Women fleeing the war in Ukraine face abuse, harassment and exploitation, FRA survey finds. Some 2.5 million women and girls have fled the war in Ukraine since February 2022 and have been granted temporary protection in the EU, including access to residence and employment. The report ‘Seeking Safety from War – Violence and rights abuses against women from Ukraine’ examines the experiences of women, the risks they faced in fleeing the war and their lives in the EU. The findings reveal the trauma they face:

• Abuse by Russian forces: 10% of the women FRA interviewed were interrogated by Russian forces. Of these, 51% were physically humiliated and 29% sexually humiliated.
• Widespread violence against women: 25% of women from Ukraine have experienced physical or sexual violence since the beginning of the Russian war of aggression. 54% were physically or verbally attacked in the EU when speaking Ukrainian publicly. This has left most respondents feeling anxious, vulnerable or less self-confident.
• High levels of sexual harassment: 51% of women were sexually harassed since the war began and 23% were sexually harassed online. Very few women reportedincidents, either to organisations supporting people from Ukraine (3%) or to victim support services (3%).
• Risk of exploitation: 24% of women encountered potentially exploitative offers of transport, housing or work. Among working women, 36% worked without a contract and 24% were either underpaid or not paid at all.
• Lack of support: 10% of respondents did not feel safe in their accommodation, 79% struggled to make ends meet and 27% had no access to mental health services to overcome the trauma of war, despite their rights to work, housing, and receive social support.
• Low levels of reporting to the police: only 13% reported the most serious incident of violence in the EU to the police. Member States should encourage victims to report crimes and enable them to report incidents, including through third parties. This includes international crimes committed outside the EU.

The immediate and long-term impact of the military escalation in the Middle East on women and girls. UN Women. (2026, April). This gender alert examines how the recent military escalation in the Middle East is affecting women and girls, both immediately and over time. It shows that conflict is not gender-neutral: women and girls face heightened risks due to existing inequalities that limit their access to resources, services, and decision-making. The analysis highlights rising displacement, loss of life, and increasing exposure to violence, alongside growing pressure on health systems and reduced access to essential services. It also draws attention to worsening food insecurity, loss of livelihoods, and the growing burden of unpaid care work, which disproportionately falls on women and girls. Beyond the region, the analysis shows how economic shocks—such as rising prices and disrupted supply chains—are affecting communities across Asia, the Caucasus, and Africa. At the same time, shrinking civic space and funding cuts are weakening women-led organizations that are often at the forefront of crisis response. Despite limited gender data, the report provides an initial evidence-based assessment and underscores the urgent need for better data to inform policy and action. The gender alert calls for immediate and coordinated efforts to protect women and girls, ensure access to humanitarian assistance, support livelihoods, and include women in peace and recovery processes. It stresses that advancing gender equality is essential to building lasting peace and resilience.

OPPORTUNITIES
EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES / PODCASTS

Resources

Health and Human Rights
Mission Statement: Health and Human Rights provides an inclusive forum for action-oriented dialogue among human rights practitioners and scholars. The journal endeavors to increase access to human rights knowledge in the health field by linking an expanded community of readers and contributors. Following the lead of a growing number of open access publications, the full text of Health and Human Rights is freely available to anyone with internet access.
Health and Human Rights is an international journal dedicated to scholarship and praxis that advance health as an issue of fundamental human rights and social justice. It seeks to provide a forum for academics, practitioners and activists from public health, human rights and related fields to explore how rights-based approaches to health can be implemented in practice. In so doing, it contributes to fostering a global movement for health and human rights.

Mental Health and Human Rights Info (MHHRI) is an open-access resource platform that provides information on the mental health consequences of human rights violations, particularly in contexts of war, conflict, and disaster. It brings together research, tools, and guidance for health professionals, human rights advocates, and others working with affected populations, with a focus on trauma, psychosocial support, and recovery.

The European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights (FRA) The European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights (FRA) is an independent body that provides expertise and evidence to support the promotion and protection of fundamental rights across the EU. It works with policymakers, institutions, and civil society to address issues including non-discrimination, data protection, and access to justice. Drawing on legal, social, and statistical analysis, FRA produces reports and guidance to inform decision-making and strengthen human rights protections.

World Health Organization: Middle East Conflict – Global Situation Report No. 5 (23 April 2026). This report provides an overview of the health and humanitarian situation across countries affected by the Middle East conflict. It highlights large-scale displacement, disruption of essential health services, and ongoing strain on already fragile health systems. Key risks include trauma-related injuries, interruptions in care for noncommunicable diseases, and increased vulnerability to communicable disease outbreaks due to overcrowding and compromised water and sanitation systems. The report also documents attacks on health care, supply chain constraints affecting medicines and medical commodities, and the broader socioeconomic impact of the crisis. WHO outlines its ongoing response, including support to national health systems, delivery of emergency medical supplies, coordination with partners, and efforts to maintain essential services and strengthen preparedness across the region.

Emma Bellamy, Podcasts presenting stories of Australia-based immigrants and refugees, along with insights from migration experts and professionals.

Upcoming Events

IUPsyS Webinar: Advancing Global Solutions: Psychological Science in a New Era of Diplomacy: May 12, 2026 at 19:00 UTC. This webinar introduces science diplomacy to the global psychological community, highlights how psychology has contributed to the science diplomacy ecosystem, and explores new directions to serve humanity in the 21st century and beyond.
Register here: https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_8zWa1eEwRQW-JuQpRoLYIQ#/registration

Sixteenth International Sakharov Conference. Authoritarianism on the Rise: Fifty years after the founding of the Helsinki Movement. Join the Sixteenth International Sakharov Conference, marking 50 years since the founding of the Helsinki Movement. Engage with global experts in Vilnius on democracy, human rights, and resistance to authoritarianism.

Frontiers of Children’s Rights Summer School-“Advancing Children’s Rights Globally: Accountability and Access to Justice.”
The 12th edition of the Frontiers of Children’s Rights Summer School will take place from 29 June to 3 July 2026, in Leiden, Netherlands.
Course information – The Frontiers of Children’s Rights Summer School will take a close look at contemporary children’s rights issues from a legal perspective, accompanied by reflections from other academic disciplines, legal systems, local perceptions and realities.
Programme – The programme is being developed by Prof. Ton Liefaard, Head of the Department of Child Law, Leiden Law School (Leiden University) and UNICEF Chair in Children’s Rights and Prof. Ann Skelton, Programme Director of the  Master of Laws Advanced Studies in International Children’s Rights (Leiden University), and the former Chairperson of the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child. This year’s theme is “Advancing Children’s Rights Globally: Accountability and Access to Justice.”
Registration is now open. To begin the registration process, please email your CV and cover letter to Ms Rehana Dole (n.r.s.dole@law.leidenuniv.nl). Applications are accepted on a rolling basis.
Target audience, This summer school is aimed at professionals, academics and law students (who have completed at least three years of their degree) with a background in law. Applicants with a background in other relevant disciplines that are relevant to the theme of the summer school will be considered as well.

Global Mental Health and Human Rights: Decolonial perspectives on Structural Violence and War, July 6-10, 2026, Venice, Italy. Course information, This summer school examines the intersections of global mental health, human rights, warfare, political violence, displacement, and structural inequalities. It introduces approaches including Liberation Psychology, critical global mental health, and intersectional feminist and postcolonial perspectives, with an emphasis on participatory tools for work in conflict-affected and politically turbulent settings. The programme will be led by faculty including Guido Veronese (University of Milano-Bicocca), Alex L. Pieterse (Boston College), and Ashraf Kagee (Stellenbosch University), with guest speaker Urmitapa Dutta (University of Massachusetts Lowell). Target audience, Applications are welcome from PhD students, young researchers, and practitioners working in mental health, international relations, law, gender and race studies, social work, education, psychology, psychiatry, public health, and related fields. The school is also open to activists, NGOs, and policy stakeholders.
Registration is now open. Applicants must submit an application form, letter of motivation, CV, and photo. For further information, please contact: summerschools@univiu.org

Call for Proposals : 11th International Conference of
Community Psychology. Gathering in the Motherland: Celebrating the Ways of Water & Reconnecting to the Source. September 1 – 4, 2026. Lagos State University, Lagos, Nigeria.
Water, the excellent nurturer, supports all forms of life, whether mythical or actual. Water runs through and shapes every landscape, enlivening the hills, the mountains, the forest, and animals of varied kinds. The power of water lies in its ability to shapeshift form for conditions. The rise of civilizations has always been inextricably linked to the successful management of water when there was either too little or too much of it, harnessing its power. All ecosystems and cultures, through the movement of humans and goods, have often become identified with the societies they support. Is it possible to think of China without imagining the Yangzi, ancient Egypt without the influence of the Nile, Caesar’s Rome, or Dante’s Florence without picturing the Tiber or the Arno? It is impossible to think of the transatlantic trade and redistributing human bodies across the Americas without Lagos, Badagry’s “Point of no Return.”

You can follow the meetings of the Human Rights Council by the United Nations Web TV: https://webtv.un.org/en/search/categories/meetings-events/human-rights-council

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CONTACTS: Published by the Global Network of Psychologists for Human Rights – www.humanrightspsychology.org

Disclaimer: The website of the Global Network of Psychologists for Human Rights (GNPHR) contains articles, events and news about the domain where psychology and human rights intersect. The information presented in this Bulletin, does not imply that the GNPHR shares the views and beliefs in the articles.

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• Contribute to the GNPHR Writing Project (NEW)
  The GNPHR invites short, idea-driven pieces that raise questions, encourage reflection, and explore the intersection of psychology and human rights. Contributions should focus on insights, arguments, or emerging issues rather than personal narrative. To participate, review the contributor guidelines, select a topic, and send your proposal or questions to writing@humanrightspsychology.org.
• Share Your Experiences and Examples
  We welcome narrative accounts from your professional experience that illustrate how human rights arise in practice. You might describe a situation where you protected, failed to protect, or advocated for human rights in your work. Submissions (500–1000 words) can draw from clinical, research, academic, applied, or volunteer contexts. Please send your story to Marlena Plavšić (marlena_plavsic@hotmail.com) and indicate if you would like to remain anonymous.
• Share your Expertise and Opinions
  We invite you to contribute a blog or opinion piece on general human rights issues; human rights education or strategies for raising the profile of human rights within psychology or your professional life. Students are welcome to contribute, including on student needs for learning about and addressing human rights. Please contact the GNPHR Blog editor (blogeditor@humanrightspsychology.org) with ideas for the article you would like to write!
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