COFEM Learning Brief Series

Researchers and practitioners working to End Violence Against Women and Girls (EVAWG) are often preoccupied with issues to breathe, pause and tend to their mental and emotional well-being. Rooted injustices of the medical industrial complex, the states’ lack of inclusive and comprehensive mental healthcare, and the heavy commercialization of wellness are contributing factors to the lack of care that EVAWG researchers and practitioners endured in most countries. Furthermore, Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC) women-led healing practices, tagged ‘unorthodox’ and ‘pseudo-science’ by colonialists are not given precedence, because the Western models of mental healthcare are mainstreamed as superior psychological interventions.