Mpowering Minds Summit: Dr Harbeen Arora calls for women’s mental health to become a worldwide priority

From police response systems in Iceland to mobile crèches in Rwanda’s tea gardens, Dr Harbeen Arora painted a sweeping global canvas to argue that women’s mental health must move from private struggle to public priority.

Speaking at the summit, Arora anchored her address titled ‘Global Voices, Shared Futures: Women’s Mental Health as a Worldwide Priority’ in lived experience, global research, and policy models.

She began on a personal note, recalling how her parents shaped her understanding of partnership and gender equity. For 37 years, she said, her father dropped her mother an IIT professional to work every morning and picked her up each evening. “That was my first lesson in shared responsibility,” she implied, underscoring how role models quietly shape women’s expectations and mental well-being.

But the speech quickly widened into a global audit of systems that either protect or fail women.

Arora framed women’s mental health through three pillars: safety nets, social solidarity ecosystems, and spiritual self-transformation.

The first pillar of safety nets refers to immediate, first-response mechanisms: family, community, helplines, and law enforcement.

In India, she noted, women often hesitate to approach police in cases of intimate partner violence. In contrast, countries like Iceland have built trust through specialised police units trained to proactively respond to domestic abuse in coordination with social services. High reporting rates there, she explained, reflect trust in the system rather than higher incidence alone.

Across Europe, helplines act as anonymous lifelines. Sweden operates a 24/7 women’s helpline that fields around 50,000 calls annually—from survivors and even concerned neighbours. The country also runs a helpline for men, recognising that prevention and support must be inclusive.

Yet access remains uneven globally. In the UK, long waiting periods in public healthcare and expensive private consultations widen what experts call the “global mental health treatment gap,” estimated between 30 and 90 per cent worldwide.

To bridge this, Arora highlighted the expansion of Mental Health First Aid (MHFA), now implemented in over 50 countries, with approximately eight million people trained. Australia and Canada lead the way, with four in 100 adults trained in Australia and two in 100 in Canada. England and Scotland follow with one in 100.

In India, she pointed to initiatives led by Neerja Birla’s organisation, mpower, and announced that Jharkhand University in Ranchi has introduced MHFA training free for students and parents.

She also drew attention to sleep, “a universal safety net,” citing data that up to 40 per cent of American adults sleep less than seven hours daily. Chronic sleep deprivation significantly raises risks of depression and anxiety, with insomnia linked to a tenfold higher risk of developing depression. Cultural practices like short siestas, she suggested, may offer simple yet overlooked buffers.

If safety nets are about first aid, the second pillar—social solidarity ecosystems—is about what Arora called “inter-aid”: systemic, structural support embedded in governance and culture.

Scandinavian countries, she said, demonstrate how policy architecture shapes mental health outcomes. Sweden integrates mental healthcare into universal healthcare, invests heavily in free education, subsidised childcare and generous parental leave that can be flexibly shared between parents—promoting both work-life balance and gender harmony in caregiving.

Norway’s de-institutionalised model treats mental health at the primary care level, equipping general practitioners to address issues locally rather than pushing patients toward distant psychiatric hospitals. Luxembourg allocates over 13 per cent of its healthcare budget to mental health services, reportedly halving its depression rate in four years.

Thailand allocates four per cent of its health budget to mental health and treats it on par with physical health, free at the point of service. In Chile, mental health is a legal right, requiring insurers to cover conditions such as depression within fixed timelines.

Singapore’s National Mental Health and Wellbeing Strategy offers another coordinated model. In 2023, 15 per cent of residents reported poor mental health conditions, but over 60 per cent expressed willingness to seek help—reflecting reduced stigma and accessible support through 24/7 helplines such as MindLine and free community mental health teams at family service centres.

India’s Ayushman Bharat scheme, she noted, provides health coverage of Rs 5 lakh per family annually for low-income households and includes mental health services. But in neighbouring Bangladesh, insurance coverage for women remains as low as 0.3 per cent, making mental healthcare largely unaffordable. Recent social protection efforts, including a Family Card initiative targeting women heads of households, could alter that landscape.

Beyond governments, Arora highlighted private-sector interventions. In Bangladesh, an award-winning initiative offers 360-degree support to women, including financial compensation in cases of assault, access to leadership training, and safety features such as panic buttons linked to GPS alerts.

Educational institutions and workplaces also play a crucial role. Denmark’s school systems integrate mental health support. Germany prioritises employee well-being in workplaces. Austria has expanded digital mental health platforms. In Rwanda, a tea factory introduced mobile crèches across plantation sites, enabling mothers to balance caregiving and work without compromising mental stability.

Through her comparative lens, Arora argued that women’s mental health cannot be addressed in isolation. It is shaped by taxation systems, trust in institutions, parental leave policies, helpline accessibility, workplace culture and even sleep habits.

The message at Mpowering Minds was clear: when societies invest in structures that normalise care, reduce stigma and ensure access, women’s mental health shifts from being a private burden to a shared responsibility.

“Power, empower and own power,” she emphasised, urging women not only to seek support but to build ecosystems of solidarity.