How To Work With Orphans Due To Gender Violence?

The loss of the mother figure is always a complex situation. As adults it is a difficult time that we find difficult to overcome, but it is even more so when we are young. Then we may not fully understand what has happened, so the elaboration of the duel becomes more complicated.

This situation can be much more difficult for orphans due to gender violence. Not only has his mother died, but his father is responsible for this happening. The reality is that gender violence leaves multiple victims in its wake … What can we do to help the children of murdered women?

What factors influence orphans due to gender-based violence in grief?

Orphans due to gender violence have to face a double grief: the one caused by the death of their mother and the one due to the loss of their father, who commits suicide, flees or is arrested. This complicated situation can lead to grief in children becoming pathological.

Whether minors develop a healthy or pathological grief depends on many factors.  Among them, the age and the cognitive and emotional development of the children, as well as the information that is transmitted to them about what happened and the person who communicates the death of their mother. In addition, it also influences whether these were present at the time of the murder and the affective relationship that the children had with both parents.

How do orphans due to gender violence react to the death of their mother?

After what happened, orphans due to gender violence find themselves facing a confusing and insecure world, to which they must adapt without the attachment figures that provided them security and on which they depended. Thus, it is normal for them to feel insecure or for a large number of emotions such as anger, sadness and anxiety to appear.

In this way, the fear of being alone and unprotected appears, as well as of being abandoned. For this reason, they usually demand an extra dose of attention and care from their new caregivers, feeling a great dependence on them. Behaviors corresponding to younger children may even appear

Denial of reality is also very common in orphans of gender violence, as well as the inability to express the emotions experienced as a result of what happened. On the other hand, obsessive ideas about what has happened, isolation behaviors and refusal to establish new relationships and even physical ailments of a psychosomatic type may appear.

What can we do to help orphans by gender violence?

Faced with such a complicated situation, it is normal for orphans due to gender-based violence to need external help to properly grieve. Thus, it is essential that the little one understands, accepts and reintegrates what has happened. For this, it will be essential for the child to express how he feels.

Thus, it is essential to work on the adaptation of the child to his new home and family environment, the one in which his mother is no longer. In this way, we will be helping you to achieve another key step: establishing new healthy relationships. With this, we will advance in the regulation of the sadness for the loss and the memory of his mother.

Finally, it is important to  work for the child to normalize the emotions that appear associated with his father. In this way, we will help you legitimize your anger and confusion, so that you can channel them properly.

Given the complexity of the situation, it is advisable to enlist the help of a specialized psychologist. In this way, we will be giving the orphans due to gender violence the best possible help.

Images courtesy of Aaron Burden, Nathan Bingle, and Kelly Sikkema.