Gendered pathways to mental health in Syria: Lessons learned from male survivors of conflict-related sexual violence

Abstract While greater recognition of men as victims of conflict-related sexual violence (CRSV) has emerged over the last ten years, gendered aspects of self-reported help-seeking and recovery for male CRSV survivors remain under-examined. The authors’ prior study mapped the evolution of adverse physical and psychological symptoms of 106 Syrian male survivors of torture and CRSV over an average of nine years after release from detention. For these Syrian men, formal support service use was very low, and the number of those describing it as beneficial even lower, in keeping with earlier studies. The aim of the present study is to understand what works to reduce mental health symptoms for men years after the experience of CRSV, torture and detention in order to draw lessons that may be helpful in Syria’s peacebuilding and recovery phase. The paper builds on the prior study by examining our hypothesis that Syrian male CRSV survivors with serious mental health symptoms may achieve symptom reduction and recovery through self-constructed pathways to social connection, male identity recovery and empowered action, given gendered barriers to formal mental health interventions. Individual coping strategies and socio-ecological resources for support were compared with persistent, highly prevalent adverse symptoms (isolation, avoidance, anger, low self-esteem or confidence and lack of trust derived from the prior mapping of symptoms and emotional states over time). The most imperative findings were the positive influence on the men’s mental health of having job/economic stability and a supportive community. While formal mental health and psychosocial services play a critical role in recovery, in conflict settings male survivors need an array of accessible gender-attuned approaches to promote psychological resilience, and to mitigate patterns of emotional suppression, avoidance and social withdrawal. Recommendations are made to reduce gendered barriers to mental health improvement for Syrian men, stimulate skills-building and access to work, reduce community stigma and enhance help-seeking, and increase access to and sustained use of support services.