Psychological support campaign

After the liberation: Trauma and discrimination

 

After 2023, of all the prisoners sponsored in France and Europe thanks to LIBERTAS, only 2 remained interned in Baku. One of them is Ludvig Mekerchyan, sponsored by the city of Bourg-lès-Valence.

For the others, life after their release was a second ordeal. After long months, even years, of imprisonment and mistreatment, causing physical and psychological trauma through torture, abuse, humiliation and deprivation, the following 3 problems stand in the way of a return to normal life for themselves and their families, and they are unable to overcome these problems alone:

 

• Trauma inherent in the experience

It turns out that, after a period of one to two months in which the trauma has been frozen, it resurfaces abruptly in the form of post-traumatic stress disorder, causing psychological, relational, family and social difficulties, with major social consequences for them and those around them.

Unable to confide in their spouses and children, they make efforts to hold back their emotions, which turn into aggression towards themselves or those around them, from which they and their loved ones suffer.

 

• Stigmatization by society

In addition to the difficulties inherent in their traumatic experience as captives, released prisoners are systematically met with a hostile reception by the surrounding society, which stigmatizes them as potential traitors who let themselves be captured without resisting, accusing them of not having committed suicide to avoid captivity, accusations compounded by the dishonor of having suffered abuse, particularly sexual, during their captivity. Far from feeling supported by society, neighbors, family and institutions, the released prisoner faces a new stigmatization by his environment as well as by administration staff.

 

• Social insecurity

Released prisoners are confronted with difficulties of social and professional integration. Having lost their jobs or interrupted their studies following their internment, their physical and psychological isolation continues due to their inability to find a place in the job market to meet their family's material needs. What's more, they do not benefit from the pensions allocated to those wounded in the war: as Armenian legislation currently stands, the psychological and physical damage caused by their incarceration is not considered to be damage suffered as a result of the war. The result is growing insecurity, which in turn feeds the psychological and social isolation of these former internees.

 

Psychological support program

Based on this observation, and in order to tackle at least the first problem, LIBERTAS is committed to taking part, in 2025, in a psychological support program for released prisoners and their families, based on a needs assessment study, prepared on the basis of a wide-ranging survey initiated by LIBERTAS, and carried out by teams made up of psychologists and social workers.

Following this assessment study, a program will be set up by a joint commission of managers from three entities with the LIBERTAS collective: the ICRC (International Committee of the Red Cross) of Armenia with its teams of doctors, psychologists and social workers, the INTRA Mental Health Center of Yerevan headed by Prof. Khachatur GASPARYAN and human rights lawyers Siranush SAHAKYAN and Artak ZEYNALYAN from the International Center for Comparative Law.

The INTRA Centre for Mental Health in Yerevan is a cooperation partner of Santé Arménie and the Hôpital du Vinatier in Lyon.