A two day workshop on Right to Health with particular focus on Sexual Violence and Mental Health was organised on 22 and 23 March 2013 in Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh. This workshop was conceived following the public outcry and action in the context of gender violence, renewed particularly by the brutal violence against a young girl and her friend in Delhi in December 2012. The workshop was attended by 25 participants from around 12 community based organisations and networks working in rural as well as urban Madhya Pradesh as well as four mental health professionals.
The workshop aimed at strengthening understanding of gender violence, particularly in the context of sexual violence and its impact on health – physical and mental health, deliberating ways to improve response (institutional and community based) response of the health system to gender violence – especially sexual violence, including focus on mental health needs, discussing strategies towards integration of mental health and sexual violence concerns into the demand and advocacy efforts of right to health. The workshop was able to facilitate discussion on the provisions and concerns with mental health legislation, related international conventions with regard to mental health and disability and on sexual violence.