“My Heart is Always Scared”

Abstract

Support for victims of sexual violence is underfunded nearly everywhere, but the need for these mental health services is particularly acute in conflict and post-conflict zones. Skye Wheeler, a women’s rights researcher at Human Rights Watch, examines the uphill battle to provide care for rape survivors.

Untitled

“…PTSD was found to be prevalent in females (64.7 percent) who had been sexually assaulted in studies (72.13 percent) [13]. Rape, rather than other types of trauma, has been linked to PTSD in several studies [12,14,15]. Furthermore, those who were physically exploited had a 72.55 percent higher prevalence of PTSD [14].…”