Untangling the Mental Health of Forced Migrants and Sexual Violence Survivors

In her PhD thesis, Rina Ghafoerkhan examines the psychological impact of forced migration, including sexual violence and exploitation. Ghafoerkhan aims to improve clinical practice for forced migrants and survivors of sexual violence and trafficking. In addition, the PhD student critically reviews prevalent frameworks around forced migration through multidisciplinary collaboration with legal experts and anthropologists.

Ghafoerkhan: ‘In our research, we highlight the diversity of experiences of sexual exploitation so that counselling services can better reflect this. Survivors of sexual exploitation are forced into sex work in different ways, sometimes through physical violence and imprisonment and sometimes through psychological coercion. In addition, repeated sexual violence is unfortunately common among survivors. We therefore developed a body-centred treatment module together with clinical experts. This module, which focuses on feeling and staying safe again, was evaluated in research.'

Some forced migrants continue to suffer long term from what they have experienced. This can develop into post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Narrative Exposure Therapy (NET) is a treatment methodology that focuses on processing traumatic events. Ghafoerkhan: ‘We investigated factors that promote or hinder the effectiveness of NET, and found that problems with emotion regulation or daily stress do not necessarily affect treatment.’