Sexual violence survivors appeal for regular counselling
A sexual violence victim. Survivors have called for counselling support.
What you need to know:
- President Uhuru Kenyatta recently assented to the Mental Health (Amendment) Bill, 2020.
- The new law requires counties to establish mental healthcare, treatment and rehabilitation services in level 2–5 health facilities.
- Currently, the services are only offered in level 4–6 hospitals.
“We need regular counselling to recover and get through the painful memories of sexual violence,” a survivor of 2007/08 post-election violence said during a July 1 forum in Nairobi.
The survivor was recommending measures that can be taken by the government and non-state actors to support them. She said inaccessibility to therapy makes it difficult for them to heal from the trauma of rape.
“It is torturous to imagine the child you bore out of rape asking you the whereabouts of his father,” she said in a forum of fellow survivors brought together by Physicians for Human Rights (PHR) to deliberate on the progress made in the provision of mental health services in Kenya.
President Uhuru Kenyatta recently assented to the Mental Health (Amendment) Bill, 2020. The new law requires counties to establish mental healthcare, treatment and rehabilitation services in level 2–5 health facilities. Currently, the services are only offered in level 4–6 hospitals.
Execution of the new law would see mental health patients under care treatment and rehabilitation receive psychotherapy and vocational care.
While Ms Naitore Nyamu, the head of PHR Kenya office, lauds the the new law but adds that to impact the survivors, it has to be implemented to the letter.
“The survivors need access to affordable mental health services,” she said. “Mental health services are quite expensive and the survivors need a couple of sessions to heal.”
As per the current pay scale, a therapy session costs an average of Sh 2,500 and a survivor would need a minimum of six sessions to recover, according to the therapists. But the cost is much higher when the survivor is medicated.
According to the National Gender and Equality Commission, it costs a survivor Sh24,797 annually to seek legal services and psychosocial and medical support. That is equivalent to nine sessions, excluding transport and medication costs.
Ms Nyamu advocated a thorough mental health assessment of survivors prior to seeking justice for the crime committed against them. “For survivors to access justice, they first need that mental health support.”
She called for proper skilling of healthcare providers on the provision of mental healthcare to avoid re-stigmatising the survivors. “If not managed well, the survivors end up with stress, post-traumatic disorder (and), anxiety.”
