The "National Conference on Mental Health Services for Survivors of Human Trafficking" was held in Dhaka Wednesday.
Winrock International organised the conference in collaboration with the Department of Clinical Psychology of the University of Dhaka.
Representatives from the National Trauma Counselling Center, National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH), and the Embassy of Switzerland in Dhaka, mental health professionals, UN bodies, INGOs, and NGOs, and mental health caregivers, supported by the Ashshash project, were present.
Ashshash works in partnership with public and private-sector service providers to deliver counselling, legal services and economic empowerment support to men and women who have escaped trafficking. The four-year project is funded by the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation and implemented by Winrock International.
Mental health caregivers shared their experiences on capacity-development initiatives that created increased access to mental health services at grassroots levels.
The importance of psychosocial support in improving the quality of life of the survivors, ensuring their overall wellbeing, and enabling self-reliance, was also highlighted throughout the session.
Ashshash's beneficiaries – the survivors, exhibited the direct result of the project's psychosocial counselling support; towards forging mental resilience and enabling their successful journeys toward reintegration.
Kamal UA Chowdhury, professor of the Department of Clinical Psychology at the University of Dhaka, highlighted the overall context of provisioning psychosocial counselling support at grassroots levels, the associated challenges, and potential scopes of intervention through collaborative efforts, moderation of existing resources, and capacity development of mental health caregivers at grassroots levels.
Read: Government increased its efforts to prevent trafficking
Mohammad Shaheen, joint secretary at the Ministry of Social Welfare, endorsed the ongoing work of the project and stated that in the future, he envisions institutionalising mental healthcare service provision.
Dr Bidhan Ranjan Roy Podder, director of NIMH, said: "We operate institutionally and projects such as Ashshash works at grassroots levels. This gap must be bridged to ensure the effective provision of counselling services."
Suzanne Mueller, deputy head of mission at the Embassy of Switzerland, said several ministries, governmental agencies, NGOs, and INGOs are working to deliver the care and support needed by the victims.
"However, we need to come up with a comprehensive referral structure by integrating all the service providers under a singular standard operating procedure," she added.