There is a kind of tiredness that doesn’t show on a face. It belongs to people who spend their days listening to the worst things that have happened to someone else, and then go home and try to make dinner.
Most of us will never meet them. They are caseworkers and shelter counsellors, nurses and social workers, police officers trained for something else entirely, and lawyers sitting with a frightened witness the night before court. Their work is quiet on purpose, because the people they sit with need privacy far more than attention. So they carry a great deal, and very few people see how much.
At the end of November, a gathering in Malaysia sets out to give that weight some room. The MHAT Global Conference (Mental Health in Anti-Trafficking and Humanitarian Crisis) runs from 30 November to 3 December 2026 at The Saujana Hotel, just outside Kuala Lumpur, with online tickets for anyone who can’t make the trip. It is convened by Asia Freedom Network, the regional anti-trafficking network led by Mosaic Market’s founder, Helen Avadiar-Nimbalker. We’ll admit to some pride here.
At a glance
- Dates: 30 November to 3 December 2026
- Where: The Saujana Hotel, near Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, and online
- Registration closes: 16 November 2026
- Register: MHAT conference page
Behind every case, a person
Numbers are a blunt way to talk about people, though they do show the scale. In July, the International Organization for Migration estimated that as many as 300,000 people are working in scam centres across Southeast Asia, many of them there against their will. The agency has helped more than 3,500 survivors from 33 countries get home, and many arrive carrying both trauma and debt.
Getting out is a beginning, and often a frightening one. Recovery from that kind of harm is slow and uneven, and trust comes back in small pieces, sometimes over years. It usually comes back through someone patient: a counsellor who doesn’t rush, or a caseworker who keeps showing up through the bad weeks.
When the carers run low
That patience has a cost. Studies of the anti-trafficking workforce suggest that secondhand trauma is common, and when the people giving care burn out, survivors feel it in the care they receive.
MHAT’s organisers describe the problem without softening it. Frontline workers face complex trauma every day, often with little training in mental health and not much support from their own organisations, while the research that could help them rarely reaches the people who need it. That gap opened slowly, through good people working with too little, and the conference was built to start closing it.
Four days in Kuala Lumpur
More than 50 speakers will be there, drawn from child protection, social work, healthcare, NGO leadership and humanitarian response. Police, lawyers and journalists get masterclasses of their own on working safely with people who have lived through trauma. Donors and policymakers will sit down with NGOs to talk honestly about funding, which is where a lot of this work either holds together or quietly falls apart.
One of the keynote speakers is Puan Anita Abu Bakar, who founded MIASA Malaysia, the peer-led mental health organisation serving as the conference’s host partner. She started MIASA in 2017 out of her own experience with mental health challenges, and it has grown into a nationwide network of volunteers and crisis responders. The way she puts it stays with you: “Recovery requires community. It is a philosophy, not a procedure.”
Reem Alsalem, the UN Special Rapporteur on violence against women and girls, will speak too. So will Dato’ Shyamala Alagendra, a Malaysian international criminal lawyer who has spent her career standing up for child victims and witnesses, and journalist Ismail Einashe, who has spent years tracing what happened to child migrants who disappeared after reaching Europe.
The part we keep coming back to is the Restore and Reset Day. It is a full day given over to the practitioners themselves, mostly rest, along with gentle sessions on settling a nervous system that has spent years on alert. It might look like a small thing on a conference programme. For someone who has been carrying other people’s pain for a long time, it may be the day they remember.
Helen comes home
Helen was born in Malaysia. She worked for years as a trauma therapist before she came to lead Asia Freedom Network in 2023, and she does that work from Chiang Mai, alongside a team that includes survivors of exploitation. Bringing MHAT to Kuala Lumpur takes it back to where her own story began.
Where Mosaic fits
Mosaic Market grew out of the same work. The fair wages paid at Thrive Ethical Fashion and the coffee grown by Akha farming families in the northern highlands are the parts you can see and hold. Behind them sit Asia Freedom Network and The Whispering Willow, a trauma-sensitive support space at the heart of what we do. Our Human Trace series tells some of the stories that come from there.
All of it rests on one plain belief. People heal among other people, and the ones doing the healing deserve some care in return.
Registration is open until 16 November, in person or online, through the MHAT conference page, and scholarships are available for NGO practitioners and frontline workers. Most of us know someone who does this kind of work, even if we rarely hear about it. This might be a good week to send them the link, or simply to ask how they’re holding up.
Frequently asked questions
What is the MHAT Global Conference?
MHAT stands for Mental Health in Anti-Trafficking and Humanitarian Crisis. It is an international conference on trauma-informed mental health care for people working with survivors of exploitation, displacement and crisis.
When and where is it?
From 30 November to 3 December 2026, at The Saujana Hotel near Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
Can I attend online?
Yes. Online tickets are available alongside in-person places.
How is MHAT connected to Mosaic Market?
The conference is convened by Asia Freedom Network, led by Mosaic Market founder Helen Avadiar-Nimbalker.
How do I register?
Through the MHAT page on the Asia Freedom Network website. Registration closes on 16 November 2026, and scholarships are available for NGO practitioners and frontline workers.
