he World Health Organization estimates that a billion people are forcibly on the move today: men, women, and children flung from their centers of gravity, places their families have known for generations. These are the survivors, the remnants of war-ravaged zones who somehow escaped the worst of humanity. Unfortunately, their trauma travels, too. While these people cut across many categories—the ‘internally displaced’ who fled their homes but not their countries, refugees and asylum seekers unable to return to their home countries, generations of impoverished economic migrants, families trying to reunite, and the untold numbers of stateless people—they share one very important trait. They are desperate.
By the close of 2024, the United Nations High Commission of Refugees projects record numbers will cross into low- and middle- income nations with little to no resources to meet the needs of these non–citizens. Many flee to fledgling or established democracies, yet their emotional turmoil is made worse by unwelcome responses from unwilling hosts; the stress of displacement exacerbates mental illness. WHO last cautioned one in five people in the world are afflicted, but since it issued this warning, the spread has become much wider. Atrocities have ravaged Ukraine and Gaza in the meantime, forcing many millions more from their homes and impacting entire populations.
‘Traumatized’ has become a major demographic. Victims live among their perpetrators along with the silent eyewitnesses of unspeakable atrocities. They are behind high fences of refugee camps, stuffed into detention centers, restricted to the most blighted and overcrowded parts of town or thrust into rural, remote oblivion. Theirs is a dual existence of density and isolation; they have close, if not crowded physical contact. Yet their communication is blocked by anxiety, depression, extreme agitation, and psychosis. Most cultural norms fear or punish mental health challenges, leaving individuals and families to suppress and hide troubles, at home, in transit, and in their new host country.
The mismatch between survivors’ mental health needs and their resources portends long term problems for democracy. With intra-and extra-regional conflicts, the numbers of people damaged and disturbed by war increase. If we fail to reverse this trend, we will be a world where the majority of us are emotionally destabilized. Development demands are vast, human engagement is critical, and the investment dollar can go far. All of us—professionals, students, civic groups can plug in to change the equation.
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Migration, mental health, and democracy
Camp for internally displaced Ezidis from the Sinjar region of Iraq, after being displaced by the Islamic State. Photo by Levi Meir Clancy on Unsplash.
August 13, 2024
Around a billion people around the world have been forcibly displaced. The mismatch between their mental health needs and the capacities of their hosts to meet those needs pose long–term problems for democracy, writes Amy Kaslow.
T
he World Health Organization estimates that a billion people are forcibly on the move today: men, women, and children flung from their centers of gravity, places their families have known for generations. These are the survivors, the remnants of war-ravaged zones who somehow escaped the worst of humanity. Unfortunately, their trauma travels, too. While these people cut across many categories—the ‘internally displaced’ who fled their homes but not their countries, refugees and asylum seekers unable to return to their home countries, generations of impoverished economic migrants, families trying to reunite, and the untold numbers of stateless people—they share one very important trait. They are desperate.
By the close of 2024, the United Nations High Commission of Refugees projects record numbers will cross into low- and middle- income nations with little to no resources to meet the needs of these non–citizens. Many flee to fledgling or established democracies, yet their emotional turmoil is made worse by unwelcome responses from unwilling hosts; the stress of displacement exacerbates mental illness. WHO last cautioned one in five people in the world are afflicted, but since it issued this warning, the spread has become much wider. Atrocities have ravaged Ukraine and Gaza in the meantime, forcing many millions more from their homes and impacting entire populations.
‘Traumatized’ has become a major demographic. Victims live among their perpetrators along with the silent eyewitnesses of unspeakable atrocities. They are behind high fences of refugee camps, stuffed into detention centers, restricted to the most blighted and overcrowded parts of town or thrust into rural, remote oblivion. Theirs is a dual existence of density and isolation; they have close, if not crowded physical contact. Yet their communication is blocked by anxiety, depression, extreme agitation, and psychosis. Most cultural norms fear or punish mental health challenges, leaving individuals and families to suppress and hide troubles, at home, in transit, and in their new host country.
The mismatch between survivors’ mental health needs and their resources portends long term problems for democracy. With intra-and extra-regional conflicts, the numbers of people damaged and disturbed by war increase. If we fail to reverse this trend, we will be a world where the majority of us are emotionally destabilized. Development demands are vast, human engagement is critical, and the investment dollar can go far. All of us—professionals, students, civic groups can plug in to change the equation.
