A year on from the Delhi riots, our story attempts to understand how riot-affected children rebuild their lives as adults, speaking to numerous survivors, social workers, psychiatrists and researchers. Impacts need not be permanent, we found, as both studies and survivors pointed to coping mechanisms and healing processes.
As part of an ongoing project,
Databaaz, the video arm of
IndiaSpend, is speaking to the families of victims in the Delhi riots to understand the impact that the violence had on children. We present a few in the photo essay below:
Trauma, psychological distress
Children affected by riots might experience a cluster of physical and mental symptoms, including unexplained pain, sleeplessness, nightmares, listlessness, loss of appetite and fear of sounds in the aftermath, according to several studies and experts. “Death is visible, a broken building is visible, but mental health issues are not always visible,” Harish Shetty, a Mumbai-based psychiatrist who worked with survivors of the Bombay and Gujarat riots, told