The purpose of the SIG is to operationalize PSI’s affirmation of the Human Rights statement under which the PSI functions through its membership in the European Federation of Psychologists’ Associations. Modelled upon the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights (1948), Psychology’s particularized statement of Human Rights was adopted both by the International Union of Psychological Science (2008) as well as by the PSI through membership of the EFPA.

Our Aims & Objectives are to: 

• To promote research in human rights and psychology.
• To promote the education of psychologists in human rights awareness, accountability, and action.
• To promote the education of psychologists on human rights and legal perspectives (e.g., national and/or international legal frameworks and implementation infrastructure, case law precedents, conflict of laws). 
• To inform the public by sharing psychological research and knowledge in relation to human rights issues.
• To promote and encourage ethical practice, at local and global levels.
• To support professional psychologists as advocates – both at the level of the individual and their family/immediate circle, and at the broader, socio-political and cultural level.
• To bring psychological thinking and science to the discourse on human rights. To make aware the nexus of evidence-based and person-centred psychology relevant to human rights perspectives on the mental health and psycho-social wellbeing of all persons.
• To promote the use of psychology to understand and address human dignity and health equity.
• To promote human rights as a unifying, cross-cutting approach within psychology, and as having relevance to all psychologists and their practices.
• To focus, inter alia, on issues specific to particular populations: Older Persons, Persons with Disability, Persons with Intellectual Disability, Neurodiverse, Children, Persons within the Criminal Justice System (Offenders, Prisoners, Innocence Projects) and Victims, Trafficked Persons, Persons with Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity Lived Experiences, Travelling Community, Persons Experiencing Homelessness, Persons Living in Poverty, Persons Living in Direct Provision, Survivors of Institutional and Clerical Abuse.
• To promote awareness /discussion of the socio-political contexts in which human rights violations occur and to encourage a critical perspective on the systemic issues which create and maintain inequality.

Officers