Medical consultation provided by CPTRT, IRCT member centre in Honduras.
What we do
Three interconnected areas of work
Our work can be divided into three mutually reinforcing areas: offering rehabilitation services to torture survivors; countering impunity for perpetrators and promoting justice for survivors; and raising awareness among policy-makers and citizens.
Because torture is a political act, the rehabilitation of torture survivors is often also perceived as political. Rehabilitation not only works to rebuild the physical and mental well-being of torture survivors, it also – when closely integrated with legal initiatives – promotes justice for survivors, an end to impunity and respect for human rights across societies.
Justice (which can include prosecution of torturers and reparations for victims) helps to prevent torture by discouraging existing and would-be perpetrators from resorting to torture. Likewise, justice is in itself an important step on the path to healing for survivors and communities alike.
Finally, rehabilitation and justice both help to raise awareness regarding the plight of torture survivors, which in turn highlights the problem of torture and the situation of survivors. This contributes to further torture prevention and movement towards eradication of torture from our world.
The relation between our three areas of work is illustrated in the following model:
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