Demonstration against the regime of Robert Mugabe in London.

On the front lines of humanitarian crises

 

IRCT member centres and programmes have many years of experience in delivering rehabilitation to torture survivors wherever they might be, including in conflict and post-conflict areas. Despite disrupted infrastructure and lack of security in such environments, the provision of services in these areas is extremely important - not only as an obligation toward individual torture survivors and their families, but also because it is an essential element in furthering social healing and reconciliation.

 

In 1999, for instance, the IRCT helped to establish a rehabilitation centre in Pristina, Kosovo to serve survivors of the Balkans conflict, and in 2000 the IRCT began piloting psycho-social programmes in East Timor. In 2005 the IRCT set up the first treatment centre for torture survivors in Iraq, the Bahjat al Fuad Centre for Rehabilitation of Torture Victims. The centre – now a fully independent non-governmental organisation located in the southern city of Basra – provides medical and psychological treatment to men, women and children and has trained hundreds of Iraqi health and legal professionals from all over the country in treating and documenting the physical and emotional scars of torture.

 

Violence in Zimbabwe following the April 2008 elections led to significant increase in persons being tortured for political reasons. In consultation with our member centre in Harare, the IRCT mobilised emergency funding to assist the centre with providing much-needed services. The financial support will also go toward strengthening the capacity of the centre to produce forensic medical reports documenting torture, so that victims can access justice and perpetrators can be held to account, thereby facilitating future reconciliation processes.

 

When Russian forces moved into South Ossetia, Georgia in mid-2008, the ensuing conflict left hundreds dead and thousands internally displaced. For many, the conflict reawakened trauma incurred by previous wars in the region, intensifying their need for psycho-social assistance. The IRCT’s two member centres in Georgia both struggled to provide care to an increasing number of patients. Thanks to a rapid response mechanism, the IRCT was able to send a physician to the area to visit IDP camps, assess the level of trauma and need for services, and provide back-up support for the caregivers offering assistance.