The business of tracking torture

The business of tracking torture
Elizabeth John

FIVE feet of firm resolve and feisty conversation, Alice Verghese is used to the "uh?" of confusion that always follows her job description.

The petite mother of one has a hard time convincing folk that it is indeed her job to make sure victims of torture get the help they need.

That is her job: to find the doctors and psychologists for groups around the world who rehabilitate survivors of torture.

Tougher still is getting people to believe that torture doesn't just happen in far flung countries in the iron grip of despotic regimes.

That is, torture takes place in fully functioning democracies around the world when dialogue breaks down and laws fail to protect.

Verghese works for the International Rehabilitation Council for Victims of Torture based in Copenhagen.

She is the programme coordinator for the Asia and Pacific region and provides guidance and training for a network of independent torture-rehab centres in Asia.

The people who come to these independent rehab centres are usually the poor, with little access to power or legal aid and lack knowledge of their rights.

They know nothing of having the right to a lawyer and medical attention while under detention.

They do not know that they must be told the reason for their detention and they cannot be held in a secret place.

In many places, the power disparity between the police and the average man is so vast that no one dares question an arrest or detention, says Verghese, who had just returned from a visit to several centres in Indonesia and Papua New Guinea.

"If police pick up someone in a small village, will the family be brave enough to make a complaint?"

From years of dealing with these victims and from the testimonies, Verghese finds that many victims are just ordinary people caught in the wrong place at the wrong time.

"In some countries, innocent people are getting caught up in between a country's military and the freedom fighters or rebels.

"If you are seen to be supporting the freedom fighters, the army moves in to intimidate."

Verghese adds that this is a common situation in conflict areas such as Sri Lanka and Mindanao.

While torture is often carried out to extract a confession, more and more the group is seeing cases of torture carried out simply to intimidate.

No one knows just how many victims of torture there are. Like human trafficking, no one keeps count.

Part of the problem also is that victims often never come forward, says Verghese, who recently completed research on torture under a Reagan-Fascell Democracy fellowship in the United States.

"Many victims think it is their fault, a result of something bad they did in their past life. Or they feel guilty because they were initially picked up for some petty crime.

"The aim of torture is to dehumanise people and they do it very successfully, attaching a stigma to the victim."

Even if a victim turns up at a busy village health post, an overworked doctor may miss the symptoms that are often psychosomatic -- headaches and depression.

They may not conclude that these are signs of torture while the victims stay silent out of fear -- after all, a government doctor is part of the structure that allowed the torture to take place.

Most victims are referred to the rehab centres by doctors, friends who had been there, or by other non-governmental organisations they may have approached.

These independent rehab centres carry out a medical diagnosis and verify the testimonies.

Some victims need medical help; for instance, they have been tied up for a long time and cannot use their arms.

A rape victim who has been thrown out of the family because of the stigma of shame will need help finding a house and a job.

Very often, recurring nightmares make torture victims dysfunctional within their families. Some turn to the bottle for comfort and end up losing their jobs.

The independent groups under the council's umbrella provide treatment for physical and psychological problems that will help victims get back n their feet and function in society.

The help available in each country differs. Some can only offer the services or social services while others can also provide legal aid.

The council helps train doctors and multi-disciplinary teams that will deal with victims.

They source experts for specific duties, like when Guatemala needed to exhume bodies and have them examined by forensic pathologists.

They also mobilise funding to pay for the training and expert help.

"There's really very little money available to help victims traumatised by torture. This is probably the bottom of the hierarchy of medical needs," says Verghese.

Right now the council is reliant on funds from the United Nations Voluntary Fund for Torture Victims and USAID's Victims of Torture Fund.

If a lack of funding isn't enough of a problem, safety is, too.

Staff at some of these centres are often monitored, followed and sometimes repeatedly arrested.

Verghese tells of one centre in Zimbabwe where staff must download their clients' files and take them home at the end of each working day to ensure the safety of the victims.

So what keeps them in the job?

"It's a sense of 'How could this happen in this day and age?'" she says.

"How could it be that in Somalia, a refugee camp with 130,000 people has a makeshift hospital with a single operation theatre while on the other side of the world, there's a mile-long isle in the supermarket just for detergents?"