The consequences of war, genocide, civil strife, and conflict and have traditionally not been the focus of rehabilitation professionals. Globally, conflict-related violence is on the increase. In 2022, the world is seeing war and conflict in the Middle East, Ukraine, Syria, Afghanistan, Ethiopia, Yemen, Violence is on the rise in parts of Western Africa, such as Mali and Niger, and continues to be source of concern in many countries of Central America, the Caribbean (e.g. Mexico, Guatemala, Haiti), and Asia (Myanmar).

There are predictions that accelerated climate change and greater global competition for natural resources will heighten the risk of armed conflict and dramatically increase the number of casualties. Unresolved conflicts and tensions can erupt at any time as we are currently witnessing.

Apart from the death toll in the wake of violent conflicts many survivors are severely traumatised or struggle with life-long injured. The illegal use of banned weaponry under the ‘Convention on Prohibitions or Restrictions on the Use of Certain Conventional Weapons Which May Be Deemed to Be Excessively Injurious or to Have Indiscriminate Effects’ (1980)is also causing extremely devastating and complex injuries. The impact of gender-based violence against women, such as rape is well known from the Genocide in Rwanda in the 1990s. This detrimental weapon has left women, children, families, societies in many countries emotionally and physically scarred for generations. Physical and psychological trauma frequently need many years to heal as experiences from Rwanda, and the Balkan wars have shown. Additionally, many survivors of war experience geographic displacement and economic destitution, which negatively impacts their recovery opportunities. Countries or regions affected by war and conflict lose their medical and rehabilitative structures and systems, and resources are needed to redevelop rehabilitation systems.

Rehabilitation of survivors of war and conflict requires comprehensive, integrated, and coordinated responses. For this special collection under the Section of ‘Disability, Inclusion and Rehabilitation’, we invite research publications that focus on a wide range of disability and rehabilitation topics and methodologies. Indicative areas include:

- Acute and long-term physical rehabilitation for survivors of war and conflict

- Gender-based violence as a weapon and its impact for rehabilitation

- Interprofessional responses to managing complex injuries resulting from conflict and violence

- Health promotion for Veterans injured in combat

- Psychiatric rehabilitation or mental health support for war survivors

- Trauma interventions for children, women, families with war and violence experiences

- Paediatric and developmental support for children experiencing war

- Assistive technology provision in war-torn regions and for survivors of violence in low resource countries

- Rebuilding rehabilitation in health systems affected by war

- Community- and social reintegration and inclusion of war, conflict and Genocide survivors

- Vocational and educational rehabilitation for war, conflict and Genocide survivors

We are specifically interested in receiving submissions with intervention studies, systematic reviews, and exploratory studies documenting rehabilitation needs.

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Frontiers in Rehabilitation Sciences

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