Congo receives £180m boost to health system to tackle warzone rape

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abuse, conflict, Congo, DRC, rape, sexual abuse, sexual assault, Sexual Violence, soldiers, taboo, training, war, War Crimes, weapon of war

Congo receives £180m boost to health system to tackle warzone rape

When Beatrice was raped, by a gang of soldiers who sauntered by her home and saw her alone, she thought it was the end of world. She could not have imagined then that rape was only the start of a terrible downward spiral that would often seem to have no end.

“My husband came and said what happened? You can’t be telling me the truth. He no longer wanted to be with me and he left. I was alone with five children.”

Beatrice, not her real name, now has a sixth child, the result of the rape. The infant is strapped to her back, and sleeps while she sobs at the memories that stalk her, in a dark room in a hospital in Goma, in the violent south-eastern corner of the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

“My husband’s parents totally rejected my child. The village did. Everyone who sees me, curses me. They say I am a soldier’s mistress.”

Beatrice’s ever deepening tragedy is also a national nightmare. By the United Nations’ very conservative estimate, 200,000 women have been through a similar ordeal since 1998.

On a trip to Goma, William Hague, the British foreign secretary, launched the UK’s plan to help tackle the crisis, announcing £180m in new funding for the DRC health system, some of which will go to training medical staff to give proper care for rape victims.

Jonathan Lusi, a surgeon at the Goma hospital, both tends to the very serious injuries which accompany rape, and oversees his patients’ psychological recovery, training to give them independent livelihoods.

“We are in a war. It’s a legal vacuum. There is no government, no authority and no values. Rape is a warning sign something has gone very wrong.”

The DRC, after decades of conflict and turmoil is just one of the world’s battlefields where the routine sexual abuse of women and girls is a weapon of war. No one has any idea how many have been raped in Syria, for example. It is hard enough to count the bodies. It is a crime against humanity that often goes unmentioned because of the squeamishness of public officials and the many challenges to collecting evidence. Corpses are easier to count than rapes, while the victims of rape live in societies that enforce silence.

The tens of thousands of rapes during the Bosnian war, for example, have only led to 30 convictions.

The British government will attempt to break the official silence over the use of sexual violence as a weapon of war by taking the unusual step of using its presidency of the G8 this year to put it at the heart of the agenda of the rich nations’ club that has in recent years been preoccupied with economic woes.

“It’s time for the governments of the world to do something about this,” said Hague in an interview with the Guardian during a visit to Goma. “I will argue it has been taboo or ignored and taken for granted for too long … We can move the dial on something like this. We are big enough in the world to do something about this.”

As well as the money pledged to support the DRC health system, Hague also announced £850,000 in support for an advocacy group called Women’s Initiatives for Gender Justice to help it document cases in eastern DRC and push the international criminal court (ICC) to take heed of sexual crimes in its deliberations. Other funding will go to Physicians for Human Rights, another NGO, for evidence collection equipment such as locked evidence cabinets for eventual prosecutions.

Such prosecutions are not necessarily a distant aspiration. One of the leaders of the rebel M23 militia, Bosco Ntaganda, handed himself in at the US embassy in Kigali, the capital of neighbouring Rwanda, last week and was flown to face war crimes charges at the ICC in the Netherlands, where he denied charges including murder, rape, pillaging and using child soldiers in his first appearance on Tuesday.

Hague was accompanied in Goma by Angelina Jolie, with whom he has forged an unorthodox partnership to campaign on the issue. He credits Jolie’s film last year about Bosnian rape camps, In the Land of Blood and Honey, with helping to inspire the British initiative.

“The hope and the dream is that next time this happens, it is known that if you abuse women, if you rape the women, you will be accountable for your actions,” Jolie told the Guardian. “This will be a crime of war and you won’t just get away with it.”

Hague and Jolie visited a camp on the shores on Lake Kivu which has sprung up as a result of an upsurge in fighting when the M23 advanced into Goma last November.

Set against a breathtaking backdrop of lake and volcanoes, the camp of 10,000 people is a huddle of meagre straw shelters half covered with tarpaulin.

The women here are forced to venture out of the camp to collect firewood or water. Both make them vulnerable to rape and many of the women and girls have been assaulted. All the International Rescue Committee, which runs the camp, can offer to mitigate the threat are “dignity kits” that contain efficient stoves that require less firewood and extra clothes so the women have to look for washing water less often.

“It’s a sad fact that when you ask how to reduce sexual violence the answer is to help them not have to go out,” Jolie said.

On the way out of the camp a woman who had earlier given Hague and Jolie a reserved factual account of her experiences ran up to them on a last minute impulse: “Please help us. We are being raped like animals.” Hague said: “The memory of meeting her will always stay with me.”

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Ecuador auctions off Amazon to Chinese oil firms

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Amazon, China, Ecuador

Ecuador auctions off Amazon to Chinese oil firms

Ecuador plans to auction off more than three million hectares of pristine Amazonian rainforest to Chinese oil companies, angering indigenous groups and underlining the global environmental toll of China’s insatiable thirst for energy.

On Monday morning a group of Ecuadorean politicians pitched bidding contracts to representatives of Chinese oil companies at a Hilton hotel in central Beijing, on the fourth leg of a roadshow to publicise the bidding process. Previous meetings in Ecuador’s capital, Quito, and in Houston and Paris were each confronted with protests by indigenous groups.

Attending the roadshow were black-suited representatives from oil companies including China Petrochemical and China National Offshore Oil. “Ecuador is willing to establish a relationship of mutual benefit – a win-win relationship,” said Ecuador’s ambassador to China in opening remarks.

According to the California-based NGO Amazon Watch, seven indigenous groups who inhabit the land claim that they have not consented to oil projects, which would devastate the area’s environment and threaten their traditional way of life.

“We demand that public and private oil companies across the world not participate in the bidding process that systematically violates the rights of seven indigenous nationalities by imposing oil projects in their ancestral territories,” a group of Ecuadorean organised indigenous associations wrote in an open letter last autumn.

In an interview, Ecuador’s secretary of hydrocarbons, Andrés Donoso Fabara, accused indigenous leaders of misrepresenting their communities to achieve political goals. “These guys with a political agenda, they are not thinking about development or about fighting against poverty,” he said.

Fabara said the government had decided not to open certain blocks of land to bidding because it lacked support from local communities. “We are entitled by law, if we wanted, to go in by force and do some activities even if they are against them,” he said. “But that’s not our policy.”

Amazon Watch said the deal would violate China’s own new investment guidelines, issued jointly by the ministries of commerce and environmental protection last month. The third clause of the guidelines says Chinese enterprises should “promote harmonious development of local economy, environment and community” while operating abroad.

Fabara said he was not aware of the guidelines. “We’re looking for global investors, not just investors from China,” he said. “But of course Chinese companies are really aggressive. In a bidding process, they might present the winning bids.”

Critics say national debt may be a large part of the Ecuadorean government’s calculations. Ecuador owed China more than £4.6bn ($7bn) as of last summer, more than a tenth of its GDP. China began loaning billions of dollars to Ecuador in 2009 in exchange for oil shipments. More recently China helped fund two of its biggest hydroelectric infrastructure projects. Ecuador may soon build a $12.5bn oil refinery with Chinese financing.

“My understanding is that this is more of a debt issue – it’s because the Ecuadoreans are so dependent on the Chinese to finance their development that they’re willing to compromise in other areas such as social and environmental regulations,” said Adam Zuckerman, environmental and human rights campaigner at Amazon Watch. “The message that they’re trying to send to international investors is not in line with reality.”

Last July the inter-American court on human rights ruled to prohibit oil developments in the Sarayaku, a tropical rainforest territory in southern Ecuador that is accessible only by plane and canoe, in order to preserve its rich cultural heritage and biodiversity. The court also mandated that governments obtain “free, prior and informed consent” from native groups before approving oil activities on their indigenous land.

A TV news report broadcast by the US Spanish-language network Telemundo showed members of Ecuadorean native groups – some wearing traditional facepaint and headdresses – waving protest banners and scuffling with security guards outside the Ecuadorean government’s roadshow stop in Houston.

“What the government’s been saying as they have been offering up our territory is not true; they have not consulted us, and we’re here to tell the big investors that they don’t have our permission to exploit our land,” Narcisa Mashienta, a women’s leader of Ecuador’s Shuar people, said in the report.

Massive rise in disruptive behaviour, warn teachers

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aggression, behavioural problems, boundaries, Children, emotional problems, family breakdown, low self-esteem, mental health issues, physical abuse, school, social media, stress, teachers, young people

Massive rise in disruptive behaviour, warn teachers

Teachers have warned that disruptive behaviour in classrooms has escalated sharply in recent years, as funding cuts to local services have left schools struggling to cope.

A survey by the Association of Teachers and Lecturers (ATL) found that the vast majority of staff had recorded a rise in the number of childrenwith emotional, behavioural or mental health problems.

The union collated numerous examples of challenging behaviour, ranging from violent assault to defamatory campaigns on social media.

Suggested reasons for the deteriorating behaviour include a lack of boundaries at home, attention-seeking, an absence of positive role models at home, low self-esteem and family breakdown.

The ATL, which has 160,000 members across the UK, said aggressive cuts to the traditional safety net of local services have left schools dealing with complex behavioural and mental health problems on their own.

Earlier this month it emerged that two-thirds of local authorities have cut their budgets for children and young people’s mental health services since the coalition government came to power in 2010. A freedom of information request by the YoungMinds charity found that 34 out of 51 local authorities which responded said their budgets for children’s and young people’s mental health services had been cut, one by 76%.

Alison Ryan, the union’s educational policy adviser, said: “Services are struggling for survival or operating with a skeleton staff, so there’s now a huge pressure on schools to almost go it alone. Schools are absolutely on the front line of dealing with these children and young people and trying to provide a service that means they don’t fall through the cracks.”

Mary Bousted, general secretary of the ATL, said: “The huge funding cuts to local services mean schools often have to deal with children’s problems without any help.”

The survey of 844 staff found that 62% felt there were more children with emotional, behavioural and mental health problems than two years ago, with 56% saying there were more than five years ago. Nearly 90% of support staff, teachers, lecturers, school heads and college leaders revealed that they had dealt with a challenging or disruptive student during this school year. One primary school teacher in Cheshire said: “I have been kicked in the head, spat at, called disgusting names, told to eff off, had the classroom trashed regularly and items thrown. We accept children who are excluded from other schools so they come to us with extreme behaviour issues.”

A teacher in a West Midlands secondary school said: “One colleague had a Twitter account set up in front of him on a mobile called Paedo ****** [their name], which invited others to comment on him and his sexual orientation.”

Another teacher in a secondary school in Dudley added: “I’ve been sworn at, argued with, shouted at, had books thrown at me, threatened with physical abuse and had things stolen and broken.”

Bousted added: “Regrettably, teachers and support staff are suffering the backlash from deteriorating standards of behaviour. They are frequently on the receiving end of children’s frustration and unhappiness and have to deal with the fallout from parents failing to set boundaries and family breakdowns.”

On the positive side, most of the disruptive behaviour facing staff was categorised as fairly low level, with 79% of staff complaining that students talked in class, did not pay attention and messed around.

Some 68% added that students were disrespectful and ignored their instructions, 55% said they had dealt with verbally aggressive students, and a fifth with a physically aggressive student. Among secondary and sixth-form students, smoking was considered a significant problem.

On most occasions challenging behaviour was deemed an irritation which disrupted class work, according to 74% of staff, but 42% revealed that they suffered stress and almost a quarter said they had lost confidence at work. Forty of those questioned said they had been physically hurt by a student.

Teachers To Be Given ‘Sexting’ Curb Guide

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Bullying, CEOP, guidance, images, internet, mobile phones, online safety, peer pressure, resources, school, sexting, support, teachers, Teens, young people

Teachers To Be Given ‘Sexting’ Curb Guide

Teachers are to be issued with a guide on how to deal with ‘sexting’ – the sharing of explicit photos or videos through mobile phones and the internet.

Amid a rise in pupils sending sexually explicit pictures, the advice pack, which is launched on Wednesday, offers tips on how to support a child whose image has been shared and whether the devices used should be searched.

A study by the NSPCC last year reported up to 40% of young people had been involved in ‘sexting’, and found teenage girls in particular were facing pressure from classmates to provide sexually explicit pictures of themselves.

Russell Hobby, general secretary of the National Association of Headteachers, welcomed the guidance.

He said: “The problem of ‘sexting’ – and the exposure of children to pornographic images through mobile devices – poses real and serious challenges for parents, head teachers and school staff.

“It exemplifies the way technology blurs the boundaries between school life and the wider world.”

The brochure – titled Sexting in schools: advice and support around self-generated images – will complement other resources already available to teachers, including ‘So You Got Naked Online’, produced last year by the South West Grid for Learning Trust.

Peter Davies, chief executive of the Child Exploitation and Online Protection (CEOP) Centre, which helped develop the new document, said: “There are very real risks with this activity by young people, from bullying to the sharing of these images among sex offenders.”

The CEOP had seen an increase in young people sharing sexual images and videos of themselves with their peer group, he said.

Last October, the Internet Watch Foundation found that 88% of self-generated, sexually explicit online content of young people had been taken from its original location and uploaded onto other websites.

Statistics from the children’s charity Beatbullying suggested 38% of young people have received a sexually explicit text or email, while 25% have received a sexual image they found offensive.

Research by the charity also suggested over half of teachers (54%) knew pupils were creating and sharing explicit material of themselves.

The newly-published guidance was developed by the Lucy Faithfull Foundation, a child protection charity, Securus Software, which provides online safety systems to over 3,200 schools, and Medway Council, whose existing advice for Kent schools was incorporated into the recommendations.

The Department of Education and the National Association of Headteachers also supported the development of the resource.

The pack will include advice to teachers about how to respond if a child tells them about ‘sexting’ they have been involved in, as well as how to handle explicit images, manage student reaction and prevent further incidents.

Case studies in the document highlight the devastating impact the sharing of explicit images can have on children’s lives and the challenges faced by schools in dealing with it.

thInk

As part of Brain Awareness Week 2013, a team of researchers from the Wellcome Trust Centre for Neuroimaging are launching an experimental app. Rick Adams tells us more. 

Have you ever wondered how your brain works? How it compares to other people’s? Or what scientists are doing to try to understand the workings of the mind? Well now you have a chance to find out – ‘The Great Brain Experiment’ is a mobile phone app that will let you – and us – experiment on your brain!

The Great Brain Experiment was developed by me and my fellow neuroscientists* at the Wellcome Trust Centre for Neuroimaging at UCL. It features four neuroscience experiments that we use in our research into how the mind works. We handed the details of the experiments over to a game programmer**, who has developed them to look much more like arcade games than our usual…

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Facebook Is The Worst Social Networking Site For Bullying, New Report Says

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abuse, Bebo, Blackberry Messenger, Bullying, Cyberbullying, Depression, Facebook, harassment, internet, self-harm, social networking sites, Teens, trolling, Whatsapp, young people

Facebook Is The Worst Social Networking Site For Bullying, New Report Says

Facebook is the worst social networking site for internet trolling, and bullying is now more prevalent online than anywhere else, a study has suggested.

Some 87% of teenagers who reported cyber abuse said they were targeted on Mark Zuckerberg’s site, while around one-fifth of youngsters were picked on by Twitter trolls, the report showed.

Those most frequently victimised were 19-year-old boys.

According to the report, 49% of those targeted by bullies were victimised off-line, while 65% of teenagers were subjected to abuse in cyberspace.

Only 37% of those who had experienced trolling ever reported it to the social network where it took place, the report found.

Emma-Jane Cross, CEO and founder of the charity BeatBullying, said many young people were suffering in silence.

“Bullying both on and off-line continues to be a serious problem for a huge number of teenagers and we cannot ignore its often devastating and tragic effects,” she said.

“We work with hundreds of young people being cyber-bullied or trolled so badly that it can lead to depression, truancy, self-harm, or even force them to contemplate or attempt suicide.”

The study, for internet site knowthenet.org.uk, found a number of social networking sites had become “popular forums” for trolls.

Some 13% of the 13 to 19-year-olds consulted claimed they were targeted on BlackBerry Messenger, 8% said they were picked on by trolls on Bebo and 4% said they were victimised on Whatsapp.

Fewer than one in five (17%) teens said their first reaction would be to tell a parent and only 1% of those surveyed said their initial response would be to inform a teacher.

Around 34% of those who were picked on by trolls said their experiences lasted more than a month.

Knowthenet, which released the study, has now launched a “trolling hub” offering advice on how to deal with online bullying.

Opinium Research consulted more than 2,000 teenagers for the study.

A Facebook spokesman said: “There is no place for harassment on Facebook, but unfortunately a small minority of malicious individuals exist online, just as they do offline.

“We have a real name policy and provide people with simple tools to block people or report content which they find threatening so that we can remove it quickly.”

Links to report concerning behaviour on Facebook exist on every page of the site meaning users can report any piece of content.

What health professionals should know about eating disorders

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consequences, contact, counsellors, diagnosis, early intervention, Eating Disorders, family, friends, GPs, health professionals, health service, help, myths, nurses, psychiatrists, psychologists, recovery, sensitivity, social workers, support, symptoms, treatment, weight, young people

What health professionals should know about eating disorders

Over the course of two years, I have met with 40 young women and men who have shared on film honest details about their experiences of eating disorders. Their hope is that sharing their stories will help other people who are similarly affected to feel less alone and encourage them to seek help.

The research shows that common myths about the illness have prevented many young people from getting the treatment and support they needed, from family, friends and even the health service.

During the course of their eating disorder, young people came into contact with many different types of health professionals including GPs, nurses, counsellors, psychologists, psychiatrists, dieticians, social workers and other support workers.

There are some things that health professionals should know when dealing with a young person living with and recovering from an eating disorder.

Anyone can have an eating disorder

Anyone can become ill with an eating disorder. Eating disorders affect people of all ages, backgrounds, sexualities, both men and women. You can’t tell if a person has an eating disorder by just looking at them.

First point of contact is often critical

This first contact with services was often a huge step for a young person. People often found it very difficult to talk about what was going on, trying to hide their problems and it could take months, even years, to seek help. The way they were treated at this point could have a lasting, positive or negative, impact.

Young people hoped that the health professionals would realise just how hard asking for help was and to help nurture and support their confidence to stay in contact with services.

Early intervention is key

Young people often felt that people struggled to recognise the psychological symptoms of eating disorders as well as the range of different eating disorders.

If those who haven’t yet developed a full-blown eating disorder could be recognised, they can also be helped earlier. This is critical, as the longer eating disorders are left undiagnosed and untreated, the more serious and harder to treat they can become.

Effective, early intervention could be achieved when health practitioners were knowledgeable, well trained, sensitive and proactive.

Eating disorders are about emotions and behaviours, not just about weight

A common myth that many of the young people had come across was the thought that people with eating disorders were always very underweight. This idea had made it harder for some to get treatment and support or even to be taken seriously by their doctor.

In some cases, young people felt that the only way for them to be taken seriously and be able to access eating disorder services was to lose more weight. This could have serious consequences; the more weight they lost, the harder it was for them to be able to seek or accept help.

See the whole person, not just the eating disorder

Once in contact with health services, above all else, young people wanted not just to be seen “as an eating disorder” but to be treated as a whole person. It was important that they felt treated as individuals and for health professionals to realise that everyone responded differently.

A good health professional also tried to engage young people on other things than just the eating disorder, hobbies or interests.

Respect the young person

Feeling respected, listened to and being given the space to explain things from their perspective was important for young people during treatment and recovery.

Professionals should take their time and find out what was going on for that particular person, not act on assumptions. Health professionals shouldn’t patronise or dismiss issues that were important to the person in front of them.

This research, funded by Comic Relief, has now been published on online at Youthhealthtalk.org.

Ulla Räisänen is a senior researcher with the health experiences research group at University of Oxford, and was responsible for conducting the study published on Youthhealthtalk.org

Social workers need training to help them better understand self-harm

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autism, awareness, education, family, online support, physical health, self-harm, social workers, support, training, understanding, young people

Social workers need training to help them better understand self-harm

It is estimated that one in 12 young people have self-harmed at some point in their lives, according to charity YouthNet. The charity says 3,000 people aged 16 to 25 visit its digital support service TheSite.org every month after looking up self-harm on a search engine. Yet, despite these statistics, self-harm awareness training for social workers is not always as comprehensive as it could be.

Nushra Mansuri, professional officer (England), at the British Association of Social Workers (BASW), says while some social workers – such as those working in mental health – may be sensitive to the issue of self-harm, there needs to be more awareness of the problem within the profession and that self-harm training is patchy.

“Whatever client group you work with, it will be a feature – it [self-harm training] should be integral because you are working with people whose lives are in crisis – there is a high correlation between the people you work with and people with a propensity to hurt themselves,” she says.

“Social workers need a greater awareness of the issue and need to understand why people self-harm. I wouldn’t lump everyone together, but it can be the impact of trauma, it can be a cry for help, it gives someone, who may have had control taken away from them, a sense of control.”

What mistakes could a social worker who lacks awareness of the issue of self-harm make? “An untrained person may have a tendency to look at the superficial and not go beyond that,” Mansuri says. “A social worker may be out of their comfort zone and not be able to deal with it – dealing with someone’s raw pain is really hard.”

Mansuri adds that social work “doesn’t have all the answers” when it comes to self-harm and that more education is required. “There is an underestimation of the importance of looking at self-harm,” she says.

Jennifer McLeod, managing director of self-harm training provider Step Up! International, says in some regions self-harm training for social workers is inadequate.

“Social workers ought to be trained in spotting the signs; if they aren’t spotted, it could be fatal,” she says. “It’s about listening to what’s not being said, looking for physical signs and emotions – they [people who self harm] are generally hiding something.”

McLeod adds that well-trained social workers will broach the topic with the young people and their families. “There might be denial from parents and social workers will have to find ways of eliciting information from young people.”

McLeod says delegates at Step Up! International training courses are often in a state of panic about the issue as they are uncertain about how to deal with the problem or even broach the subject.

“Some professionals don’t feel confident about bringing up the issue directly, they daren’t ask about it as they think it might make it worse”, she says.

McLeod suspects self-harm is on the increase – and is being talked about more – because of the current economic climate.

“In addition to the emotional and biological changes [young people experience], there is the recession, labour market issues, parents being made redundant – parents may not be managing and may be economically struggling,” she says.

Caroline Hattersley, head of information, advice and advocacy at theNational Autistic Society (NAS), says people with autism face a “raft of challenges” that might make self-harm more likely.

“Autism does bring specific difficulties – we’d like to see more training on understanding autism and its relation to self harm,” she says. “The key is understanding the individual and understanding the underlying causes.” Lacking this understanding could lead to a social worker misinterpreting why someone is self-harming, Hattersley adds.

“The individual might not have done it before, they may be hitting their head because they may have communication difficulties and they’re trying to communicate a physical problem – you might miss an ear infection,” she says.

Hattersley acknowledges that it can be difficult for professionals to admit they are struggling with the issue of self-harm. NAS has set up Network Autism, a forum where professionals can read research, and discuss with each other, the issue of self-harm and how it relates to people with autism.

YouthNet’s chief executive Emma Thomas says all practitioners working with people who self-harm would benefit from a better understanding of the problem. She adds: “If social workers are more aware of services like TheSite.org, many more young people can be directed to safe, anonymous online support to complement the vital offline support they need.”

Soldiers more likely to be convicted of violent offences, report reveals

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alcohol abuse, anger, anxiety, armed forces, combat, Depression, mental health issues, Military, military personnel, PTSD, support, trauma, treatment, troops, veterans, violence, violent behaviour, violent offence, vulnerability

Soldiers more likely to be convicted of violent offences, report reveals

Young British men who have served in the armed forces are three times more likely to have been convicted of violent offences than their civilian peers, according to a study published on Friday.

The report in the Lancet, the first to marry the experiences of almost 14,000 military personnel with details on the Police National Computer, also shows how troops who have been in combat are more likely to be involved in violent offending back in the UK.

The study’s authors believe this raises questions about how the military and the NHS supports serving and former troops, some of whom end up abusing alcohol or developing severe mental health illnesses following tours in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Drawing on a random sample of 13,856 serving and ex-personnel mostly from the army, researchers from King’s College London looked at criminal offending rates and the possible links between them and post-traumatic stress disorder, anxiety, depression and other mood disorders.

The study found that of 2,700 men serving in the armed forces under the age of 30, 20.6% had been convicted of a violent offence, compared with 6.7% in the general population. Men who had seen combat in Iraq and Afghanistan were 53% more likely to commit a violent offence than those in non-frontline roles. And personnel who had multiple experiences of combat had a 70% to 80% greater risk of being convicted of acts of violence.

Violent offences covered a broad range of acts, from verbal harassment to homicide. They did not include incidents of domestic violence.

“More frequent exposure to traumatic events during deployment increased the risk of violent offending,” the report says. “We noted a strong link between PTSD and violent offending. Combat veterans with PTSD and other mental health concerns frequently present with problems of anger and aggression.” However, it also notes that troops who volunteer and are trained for fighting are not chosen randomly.

“In the UK, infantry units have traditionally promoted aggression as a desirable trait and such units frequently recruit individuals who are socially disadvantaged and are likely to have low educational attainment.”

Dr Deirdre MacManus, who led the study, said: “Our study found that violent offending was most common among young men from the lower ranks of the army and was strongly associated with a history of violent offending before joining the military. Serving in a combat role and traumatic experiences on deployment also increased the risk of violent behaviour.”

Prof Sir Simon Wessely, who co-authored the study, added: “We are suggesting there is a problem that needs to be looked at, but just as with post traumatic stress disorder this is not a common outcome in military populations.”

Screening within the armed forces to identify at-risk individuals would not work, he argued. For every correct prediction there were likely to be five that were wrong.

Dr Walter Busuttil, director of medical services at Combat Stress, said: “These findings will help us to identify which veterans are most vulnerable and in need of appropriate care and treatment after leaving the armed forces. We are planning courses for anger management and domestic violence. We are about to establish programmes that deal with alcohol abuse linked to PTSD.

“It would be grossly unfair and inaccurate to characterise all veterans living with PTSD as potential criminals. As noted in the report the vast majority [83%] of serving and ex-serving UK military personnel do not have any sort of criminal record, and the likelihood of violent behaviour is lower among older veterans [aged over 45] than in the general population. What we require now is continued public education to reduce any negative connotations with seeking help for mental health issues, as well as sustained funding for services for veterans.”

The Ministry of Defence has introduced a series of initiatives to encourage serving personnel to come forward if they fear they might be suffering from trauma or the early stages of anxiety or depressive illness, and has committed £7m to improve support services.

Mental health of Iraq and Afghanistan reservists causes alarm

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army, army reservists, civilian life, discharge, isolation, mental health issues, military personnel, needs, PTSD, risk, stigma, suicide, support, support networks, veterans, welfare

Mental health of Iraq and Afghanistan reservists causes alarm

Ministers must find more money to support thousands of army reservists as evidence grows that part-timers who served in Iraq and Afghanistan are more likely to suffer from serious mental health illnesses than regular soldiers who served alongside them, two leading military charities are warning.

Amid concerns there will be a sharp increase in the overall number of veterans needing expert help over the next five years, the Royal British Legion and Combat Stress say the government must focus on the so-called “weekend warriors” who have become a mainstay of British military operations and will be used to cover deep cuts to the full-time army.

The charities say reserves who fought abroad in recent years are twice as likely to develop serious mental health issues, such at post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), but they return to civilian life without proper support for themselves or their families.

The warning comes as some charities have reported a marked rise in the number of veterans coming to them needing help. At the start of a major series in the Guardian on the Iraq war, one former major general said he feared a “bow wave” of new cases would emerge over the next decade.

With the Ministry of Defence wanting to double the number of reservists to 30,000 over the next five years, Chris Simpkins, the director general of the Royal British Legion, and Commodore Andrew Cameron, chief executive of Combat Stress, said: “There is now a pressing need to seriously address the support requirements of reservists and their families.”

In an article for Comment is free, Simpkins and Cameron said: “We must work with the reservist community to raise awareness of mental health conditions and reduce the stigma associated with admitting to mental health issues … we are very clear that now is the time to develop resources, and we suggest that communities and health services that have increased numbers of reservists must receive more funds.”

Drawing on studies by the King’s Centre for Military Health Research, the charities say there is strong evidence to suggest reservists are more prone to mental health problems.

A five-year study of more than 500 reservists who served in Iraq showed they were twice as likely to get PTSD compared with regular soldiers. The report said reservists had “significantly elevated rates of common mental disorders” and warned that “rates of mental illness may continue to rise in the months and years after reservists have returned home”.

The charities say: “The reasons behind this increased risk aren’t fully known but … the differences between support networks for regulars and reservists may provide an answer.

“Unlike their colleagues in the regular forces, reservists do not have an extended period of time surrounded by their peers when they return home from duty, and often swiftly return to their civilian role, without the opportunity to share experiences with others who have served alongside them.

“These support networks are hugely important and the Royal British Legion and Combat Stress, alongside other armed forces charities, are working to minimise social isolation and improve integration between civilian and military life in the reservist community.”

Although UK forces pulled out of Iraq three years ago, and will have left Afghanistan by the end of next year, concern about the welfare of veterans is increasing, with some charities noting a sharp rise in referrals.

The most serious mental health problems, such at PTSD, often do not present themselves for a decade. Cameron said Combat Stress was still getting referrals from men who had served in Northern Ireland.

The charity registered a 29% increase in the number of Iraq war veterans it helped last year, bringing the total to 1,231. It is treating almost 500 Afghan war veterans – there was a 71% increase in the number of new referrals last year.

Major General Tim Cross, who served in Iraq, told the Guardian the problems faced by ex-servicemen would increase as the decade wore on. “I think we are building up. I’ve said for quite a while we [have] got a bow wave coming. PTSD on average takes about 11 years to really show,” he said. “A lot of the Falklands veterans have gone through really difficult times and they now say, I think it’s probably true, more Falklands guys have committed suicide than died during the campaign.”

A similar delayed reaction would happen with Iraq and Afghanistan, he said.

The MoD has set aside £7.2m to improve services for veterans and the government has appointed Lord Ashcroft to conduct a review focusing on the needs of military personnel as they undergo the transition to civilian life.

According to MoD statistics, 964 service personnel were medically discharged in the past five years suffering from mental and behavioural disorders – the second most common cause for discharge.

Of these, only 195 were suffering with PTSD. Though officials say the prevalence of this condition within the armed forces is roughly the same as the general population, there is suspicion among charities, and veterans that this does not reflect the true extent of a problem that might take years to develop.

Professor Marilyn Flynn, an expert on mental health issues in the military, said there was little incentive for serving personnel to admit they may have a problem: “If you say you are not fine, you go into limbo. There is no incentive to admit you might have a problem. You are neither one thing or another. There is a tremendous incentive to say that you are fine.”

Cameron said: “Do we need to do more for veterans? Yes. Can we do more? Probably. Can the charities do it themselves? No. A broken arm is obvious and easy to treat. A broken mind is not.”