Torture knocking on Denmark’s door

Recently, the IRCT and two of its Danish member centres spoke with Copenhagen-based monthly newspaper The Murmur about their work with torture victims in Denmark.

Torture is something that most of us assume only affects those in developing nations, where civil wars still rage, governments are heavily corrupt and poverty plagues the masses. But while it is more prevalent in these nations, Amnesty International found evidence of torture in 79 countries, all of which had ratified the UN Convention Against Torture.

The IRCT is a leading organisation that helps rehabilitate these individuals, with 144 rehabilitation centres providing holistic treatment to torture victims in 76 countries.

Asylum seekers arriving in Denmark often bring with them scars from their encounters with torturers. In Copenhagen, the Oasis rehabilitation centre has just 15 staff members tending to approximately 130 victims, mostly hailing from Afghanistan, Iraq, Palestine and Somalia. Its sister organisation, Rehabiliteringscenter for Torturofre (RCT) in Jutland, treats many people from the Balkans, Chechnya, Syria, and the Post-Soviet Republics.

Both organisations treat the victims using a range of services and personnel, including social workers, psychologists, physical therapists and psychiatrists.

“We treat many civilians who have been victims of, or have witnessed organised violence against others, either during armed conflicts or under terror regimes, but we also treat perpetrators, as many from the Balkans were forced into military service against their will,” explains Mikkel Auning-Hansen, an RCT psychologist.

“Chechen refugees are damaged in many ways. Some were hunted, interrogated or tortured by paramilitary groups. Most of them have family members missing, hiding away from home or hunted for their political views. Some still feel that they are being hunted in Denmark.”

Ruth Lauge, the Director of Oasis, says soldiers are often the perpetrators. “We’ve treated a number of people who were kidnapped by the Taliban. For example, young children who were beaten and forced to put on suicide vests and being psychologically prepared to die, before they escaped,” she explains, adding that many victims have been living in Denmark for years, even decades, before they seek treatment.

“Many people come from being on the run and they just want a normal and safe life, with a home, family and work – just like anyone else,” Auning-Hansen says.

“Most cope for a limited time, but eventually, stress at work, problems in the family, loss of job or other unforeseen stresses tip the load and that’s when people reach out for help.”

 

Read the full article in the latest issue of The Murmur or click on this link.

‘Body Movement Reconnect’ – An interview with a STTARS Survivor

A circus is a show featuring colourful, entertaining and often daring acts. A circus aims to amuse, to entertain and to joke. And a circus is also a method of rehabilitation.

‘Body Movement Reconnect’ is a joint initiative between STTARS and Uniting Care Wesley Bowden

Despite the fun factor, circus acts and similar physical activities are used by IRCT members to encourage confidence, creativity and cooperation among torture survivors.

One particular example of this is the ‘Body Movement Reconnect’ programme, a joint initiative between Australian member STTARS and the group Uniting Care Wesley Bowden.

With the assistance of trainers at the South Australian Circus Company, this six-month program from February 2014 helped female survivors of torture body awareness, develop social connections, improve fitness and build self-esteem to reduce the impact of chronic pain.

For Katie, whose name has been changed to protect her identity, the STTARS programme restored happiness and a sense of belonging, missing after years of fear during the Russian invasion of Afghanistan, her subsequent move to Iran and her experience of rape as a child.

“When the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan [in 1979], I was 11 years old. At this time, the Soviet soldiers were catching girls and disappearing with them. They would also come after the young boys taking them in the name of military service,” Katie explains.

“At the time, I didn’t feel that affected because I was young. But I remember many girls disappeared. If you left the house then you could be taken. So we did not leave the house.”

In 1980, Katie and her mother, four sisters, three brothers and grandmother fled to Iran. Her father stayed in Afghanistan to fight. He was killed.

“In Iran, I didn’t go to school. Half of the children did not go to school because of the expense, the rent of the house, and living in a country illegally,” says Katie.

“It was only after we moved that I began to recall trauma I suffered in Afghanistan. I had been lying to people to stop them finding out.”

While bringing a meal to her brother-in-law, Katie was imprisoned in his home and raped.

“I didn’t know anything about being a woman,” Katie says. “I did not know what had happened to me as I passed out. I felt ashamed and embarrassed.”

“It was hard to forget the memories when I was 11 years, but my husband was a good man. We had a beautiful son together, but when my son was five-years-old, he became sick and died. That was the saddest time of my life.”

This culmination of sadness from fleeing Afghanistan and her rape began to takes its toll on Katie.

“My life during those times was coloured with sadness. I came to Australia with hopes for a better life. I was very scared in the beginning. Everybody spoke a foreign language and everything was unknown,” Katie says.

“When I came to STTARS three years ago, I met ladies from my country, it was here that I began to feel safe.”

Katie soon joined the Body Movement Reconnect programme, participating in a range of circus activities accompanied by therapy and group counselling.

After six-months of support from STTARS, Katie feels reinvented.

“For me it was like being with my sisters again, there were women laughing, having fun, exercising. We shared lunch and talked about our countries and background. It always felt like a safe space and I knew the women there understood me and I understood them. I am a strong Afghani woman, and that makes me feel proud.”

Beyond PTSD: New study reveals pervasiveness of torture effects

Eating, showering and getting dressed. Most of us do these basic activities every day. Many of us also use a phone or some other form of technology on a daily basis and housework and grocery shopping are part of our weekly chores. Performing these and other daily activities come natural to the majority of us, yet for some, even a simple task like brushing your teeth is a daily struggle.

The latest issue of Torture Journal is now online and can be downloaded from the IRCT website.

A recent study in Denmark has established a link between exposure to torture, trauma and post-migration stress in newly arrived asylum seekers and a decreased ability to perform activities of daily living. The researchers behind the report Activity of Daily Living Performance amongst Danish Asylum Seekers: A cross-sectional study used a number of different measures to first determine the health of 43 asylum seekers and then look at their ability to perform basic everyday tasks. The result showed an overwhelming 62% struggled with completing some of their daily tasks.

Across the world, health professionals often refer to activities of daily living (ADLs) when measuring the functional status of a person. While there is much information on how well individual groups such as the elderly or people with disabilities perform ADLs, no larger studies have addressed ADL issues encountered by traumatised asylum seekers and refugees. Although relatively small, the Danish study is a good indicator of what to expect from future studies addressing this issue.

When it comes to measuring a person’s ability to perform ADLs, it is impossible to ignore their health and well-being. Pain in particular, is an important factor when discussing ADL ability, as it is well documented that persistent pain interferes with a person’s ADL performance and social participation.

In the Danish study, which involved asylum seekers from Syria, Iran and Afghanistan, a staggering 72% of the participants reported that they suffered from a pain problem. Alarmingly, most of them had been exposed to torture and many of them showed signs of stress and depression, both of which can contribute to a low ADL score.

Most people arriving in a new country after fleeing war and mass conflict need urgent treatment and rehabilitation to help tackle the trauma and other physical and mental after-effects. Yet, unlike other groups in Denmark that struggle with completing everyday tasks, asylum seekers, tortured or not, do not instantly have access to treatment or rehabilitation.

Many of the specialised rehabilitation centres simply do not offer rehabilitation before the asylum seeker has been granted asylum just as health care and social subsidies remain a privilege for the resident population. Until their pending case is decided and they receive refugee status, asylum seekers only have access to acute medical needs, unless they apply to the Danish Immigration Service for further medical attention.

As the study points out, the right to rehabilitation should in principle be regarded as an obligation to rehabilitate those who are in need. Failing to do so can have far-reaching consequences for traumatised asylum seekers, including social isolation, dependency on others and deteriorating health.

According to the Danish researchers, one way of preventing further loss of ADL ability among traumatised asylum seekers is to provide them with the appropriate rehabilitation upon arrival, and not wait until they have been granted asylum. An argument that is difficult to disagree with when reality is that most asylum seekers have complex health and social care needs that require our immediate attention.

In other words, health impediments that reduce someone’s quality of life must be addressed as soon as possible. After all, something as simple as brushing your teeth should not be a struggle for anyone.

 

To read the latest issue of Torture Journal click here.

Creating a world without torture: August in review

We round-up our blogs from August and don’t forget to keep checking the blog in the coming weeks for more. Click here to visit our Facebook page, and here to visit our Twitter feed.

The US and torture: Ignorance, arrogance and denial

Over the past month many blogs have focused on the continuing involvement, direct or indirect, of the US in torture across the world.

A waterboarding demonstration by US Navy veteran Joe Tougas. Waterboarding was one of the torture methods doctors helped develop with the CIA (picture used under Flickr creative commons licence courtesy of Isabel Esterman)

As continued pressure grows on the US to release in full the CIA torture report, which highlights the extent of torture perpetrated by the CIA against terror suspects post-9/11, we reminded critics of the CIA to also remember that the torture methods and devices were designed by doctors – doctors who have a duty to heal, not harm. While the CIA role cannot be understated, the role of medical personnel in designing torture must be accounted for also.

Overseas, we joined hundreds of human rights organisations in calling for the US military to be held accountable for the deaths and torture of Afghani civilians and for better practices to ensure that families of the dead are made aware of the circumstances of death immediately. Currently many families simply do not know the true fate of their loved ones. This blindness prevent them not only knowing the truth, but also accessing justice and rehabilitation. This has to end.

 

New rehabilitation modes taking torture and culture seriously

Still in the US, but a more positive note, we looked at one program from the Harvard Program in Refugee Torture which is helping Cambodian survivors of torture overcome the horrors of the Khmer Rouge regime.

Today Cambodians still come to terms with the Khmer Rouge regime, one which is still being brought to justice, most recently with the life sentences of Nuon Chea and Khieu Samphan, two figureheads of the regime.

For the survivors, justice only does so much. For many their families are destroyed and those who tortured them have already escaped punishment throughout the majority of their lives.

The article, which you can read here, is set to feature in the new edition of Torture Journal also.

 

Underground torture in Lebanon

Several floors under the busy Adlieh intersection in east Beirut, hundreds of people suffer harsh interrogation and torture in a makeshift detention centre.

Demonstration calling to close down the General Security Detention Center (used courtesy of Farfahinne under Flickr creative commons licence)

It is a place unknown to many – thousands of commuters pass over the site every day. But it is a place very much present in the minds of refugees in the city, some of whom have spent time in this underground chamber.

It is this clandestine chamber that IRCT member centre Nassim for the rehabilitation of the victims of torture at the Lebanese Center for Human Rights (CLDH) exposed and campaigned against on this year’s 26 June — the latest call of many to end torture and impunity in Lebanon.

You can read more on CLDH’s campaign to end the detention centre by clicking this link.

 

Australia can no longer deny that its treatment of asylum seekers does not constitute torture

Dr Peter Young, former medical director for mental health at IHMS, gives evidence at the inquiry into children in immigration detention last week. Photograph: Joel Carrett/AAP (used courtesy of Guardian online)

Criticism of the Australian policy on detaining and deporting asylum seekers with little consideration for their wellbeing quietened over August. That was until Dr Peter Young, former director of IHMS mental health services, the company responsible for healthcare in all of Australia’s detention centres, boldly confronted what many have suspected for a long time: treatment in Australia’s asylum seeker detention centres is akin to torture.

We congratulated Dr Young for his honesty. Read more about it here.

 

Two different but effective rehabilitation programmes from two IRCT members

The 143 IRCT members across the world are working tirelessly every day to ensure survivors of torture are rehabilitated, given access to reparations and justice and that torture is prevented within their contexts.

This month we focused on two centres in particular who are using art forms to rehabilitate torture survivors.

The first was the Accoglenza e Cura Vittime di Tortura (Vi.To.) project, funded via the European Union’s EIDHR (European Instrument for Democracy and Human Rights) for IRCT member the Consiglio Italiano per I Rifugiati (CIR) (Italian Council for Refugees). Staff at the centre use theatre to help refugees and torture survivors overcome their experiences, build their self-esteem and teach them valuable new skills.

You can read more about the project and see all the pictures here.

Secondly we focused on Freedom from Torture in the UK and their “Write to Life” project. A creative writing group the “Write to Life” project is one of the most powerful therapy programmes on offer. It has been meeting continuously every two-weeks for 12 years, has produced a formidable body of writing, and the participating torture survivors have reported that the group has aidedtheir rehabilitation – not bad for an initiative initially dismissed by some medical experts. You can read more about it here.

 

For further information from World Without Torture, do not forget to ‘like’ us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter. Click here to visit our Facebook page, and here to visit our Twitter feed.

Creating a world without torture: July in review

While July was an incredibly busy month for the anti-torture movement, one story stood out beyond the rest: the trauma experienced in Gaza amidst the current context of war.

Below we round-up our blogs from July and don’t forget to keep checking the blog in the coming weeks for more. Click here to visit our Facebook page, and here to visit our Twitter feed.

A glimpse of the destruction in a street in Gaza following an airstrike (picture courtesy of Wikimedia commons)

War in Gaza paralyses torture rehabilitation movement

Over 1,200 people are dead in the war in Gaza, the majority of whom are civilians. Families are being torn apart by the war, cities are being destroyed and support mechanisms which typically assist rehabilitation and rebuilding are being destroyed at a ferocious rate.

The IRCT has three centres in the Palestine-Gaza territory – all have felt the effects of this war first hand.

Civilian inspects the rubble (picture courtesy of UNRAW)

In order to show the strain the people on the ground are under, the IRCT published a story summarising the strain the centres face and the growing problem of trauma which has spread throughout Gaza – trauma which would normally be treated but cannot be effectively in this instance due to the relentless destruction present every day.

The IRCT will continue to monitor the situation in Gaza closely and will encourage the international community to remember the importance of rehabilitation and support mechanisms which assist society in regaining strength.

The read the full story click this link.

 

Continued violence transforming eastern Ukraine into new epicentre of torture

Armed soldiers guard a border crossing in Eastern Ukraine (picture courtesy of Sasha Maksymenko, used under Flickr creative commons licence)

The situation in Ukraine has been unstable ever since anti-government protests began last year.

Yet now, with the continued battles in eastern Ukraine between pro-Russian separatists and Ukrainian forces, torture reports and incidences have been extremely prevalent on the radar.

In order to gather some perspective on how often these incidences of torture are reported, the IRCT spoke to its member in the region about the realities of torture in eastern Ukraine and what the international community could be doing to stop this crime.

To read more on this story click this link.

 

How European Parliament changes may affect anti-torture priorities

The European Parliament building in Strasbourg, France (picture courtesy of Gerry Balding, used under Flickr creative commons licence)

Still in Europe, our most popular blog this month focused on the possible fallout human rights organisations in Europe could expect with the recent changes in the European Parliament.

To give a full and fair perspective on the possible changes, we spoke with IRCT Advocacy Advisor Elena Zacharenko, based in the IRCT’s European Affairs Office, who outlined the main changes in the european political landscape and speculated how these alterations may impact on the priorities of human rights organisations.

Click this link to read the full blog.

26 June: Photo highlights

Participants and staff at BCHRD in Bangladesh take part in the human chain and rally in Mophammodpur, uniting agaisnt torture and impunity.

It seems like a long time ago already when hundreds of human rights groups united around the world to campaign for the end of torture.

However it was only last month when thousands of people across the globe voiced their support and solidarity for victims of torture and condemned the practice of torture perpetrated in a variety of contexts.

The main theme for the 26 June campaign was #NoMoreImpunity, a theme replicated across all the IRCT materials for the day – many of which are viewable in the photo blog summarising the highlights of the day.

To read this blog and to view a selection of photos from the day, just click this link.

 

IRCT Rwandan Genocide commemoration comes to an end

Since April we have been publicising ten hard-hitting, insightful, harrowing stories from female survivors of torture and sexual violence of the Rwandan Genocide in 1994.

Twenty years after the genocide these brave women, and many more throughout Rwandan, are still seeking therapy and justice. But it is thanks to the provision of therapy that many of these women are overcoming their past.

We focused on ten stories over the exact 100 day period of the genocide, each with a different theme and experience. All of the stories are featured in the IRCT’s latest publication of Torture Journal, which you can read in full here.

To read our blog summarising the series of stories and the end of the commemoration period, click this link.

 

New Swedish law enshrines important step against impunity

July signalled a positive step towards the global fight against impunity with Sweden adopting a new law which grants them international jurisdiction to try perpetrators of torture, no matter how historic the cases of torture may be.

The law, which is expected to be expanded upon once more in January 2015, was welcomed by the IRCT as a positive step in assuring victims of torture receive justice and redress for their torture.

The IRCT also wishes to congratulate the Swedish Red Cross who were instrumental in assuring this law was possible.

To read the full story click this link.

For further information from World Without Torture, do not forget to ‘like’ us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter. Click here to visit our Facebook page, and here to visit our Twitter feed.

Twenty years after the Rwandan Genocide, one woman explains how she moved past murder, rape and torture

Here at World Without Torture we are now halfway through our 10 story campaign focusing on female victims of sexual violence and torture during the 100 days of the 1994 Rwandan Genocide.

The genocide, which remains the largest of modern times, still has effects on the country 20 years later. To understand the effects we are publishing 10 stories from female victims of sexual violence who are recovering from the trauma.

The fifth story focuses on Berthilde Uwimbabazi, who at the age of 34 witnessed the death of her seven brothers, two sisters, her husband and four children – all at the hands of the Interahamwe (a Hutu paramilitary organisation responsible for many of the deaths at the time).

For Berthilde the torture did not end in the psychological effects of witnessing death. Raped, threatened with grenade attacks, and beaten repeatedly, Berthilde found incredible bravery and strength to overcome her experience. However, through a targeted programme of sociotherapy, Berthilde has overcome her past.

You can read an extract of Berthilde’s story “Sharing my problems soothed my headaches and took me out of loneliness” below.  To read her full story, click this link. And to read the stories of the other brave women featured in our campaign, click this link.

Berthilde’s story

My name is Berthilde Uwimbabazi. I come from the Eastern Province, where I was born in 1960, one of 11 children of my farming parents. I married my husband in 1977. We had five children. When the genocide took place, it found us in Bugesera District. My parents, seven brothers and two of my sisters were all killed. Only one of my sisters and I escaped. However, I also lost my husband and four children. One child was killed by a neighbour. Of the children I had with my husband, I remained only with one – the one I carried during the genocide. I also have another daughter as a result of the rape I experienced in 1998 and an adopted child.

Illustration courtesy of Danish artist Yildiz Arslan

I had a good life before the genocide. I was still healthy and my husband was working as a mason; we both had enough money as well as a large plot of agricultural land. My husband and I helped and understood each other. I liked my peers, my children, my neighbours and my friends, but most of them were killed during the genocide.

I now live in a complex of newly built houses for poor and vulnerable people, inhabited by people from all over who do not know my sufferings. I sometimes feel intense sadness because they have called me Interahamwe. They were not in Rwanda during the genocide and have no idea about who I am. When I think about what happened to me during the genocide and about the way my neighbours talk about me, I feel intense sadness and grief so strong it kills me.

None of the previous conflicts in Rwanda were as violent as the 1994 genocide. After the airplane of President Habyarimana crashed, the Interahamwe started killing people that same night. My family and I took refuge atthe Nyamata Catholic parish. After a few days, grenades and bombs were thrown into the church, killing or hurting those inside.

Those who had been outside, including me, all ran away on their own without looking back. I went to hide in a nursery school. The same day we were shot at, MINUAR picked up the white French people who were staying there with us.

Three days later, the school guard chased out those who remained. I then started to hide in a forest during the daytime and slept in ruined houses during the nights. At one point the Interahamwe found me there with seven other women and young girls. From then on they raped us in turn in the evening after their daily work of killing Tutsis. We expected them to kill us too but they did not.

To read Mameritha’s full story, click this link (opens as PDF)

To view the full list of stories, which will be updated every two weeks from April until July, please click this link.

‘I found a family through sociotherapy’: Mameritha’s story of overcoming the Rwandan Genocide

During the 100 days of the 1994 Rwandan Genocide, more than 800,000 people were killed for being part of a different ethnic community. It remains the largest genocide of modern times.

Twenty-years later, the effects are still being felt across the country. To understand the effects we are publishing 10 stories from female victims of sexual violence who are recovering from the trauma.

The fourth story focuses on Mameritha Nyiramana and her story of recovery, a long and difficult process as Mameritha not only had to overcome the murder of her siblings during the genocide, but also had to take the responsibility of a pregnancy caused by her rape by members of the Interahamwe (a Hutu paramilitary organisation responsible for many of the deaths at the time).

Speaking in frank, vivid terms, Mameritha explains how she overcame fleeing to the Congo, re-entry to Rwandan to testify in legal proceedings against her attackers, and her journey through sociotherapy which has gradually allowed her to build a happy home.

You can read an extract of Mameritha’s story “I found a family through sociotherapy” below.  To read her full story, click this link. And to read the stories of the other brave women featured in our campaign, click this link.

Mameritha’s story

I was born in the Southern Province of Rwanda. My parents were cattle keepers. We were ten children. We are now four because the other six died during the genocide. Before the genocide, I never experienced any violence. The first time I encountered violence was during the genocide, when I was nineteen years old. I was raped and I gave birth to a child of theInterahamwe. I have good memories of my life before the genocide, especially of meeting up with my friends. It hurts that I no longer see them, because the genocide separated us.

Illustration courtesy of Danish artist Yildiz Arslan

At the beginning of the genocide we were all at home. We saw houses being burned on the other side of our neighbourhood. Suddenly I saw many aggressive men coming towards our home. They had machetes and sticks. I then heard my mother telling us, “Run away because they are coming to kill us.” We fled separately, each searching for a place to hide. I decided to hide in the forest, expecting nobody to find me there. I spent three days alone in the forest. Then the Interahamwe found me and raped me.

Most of them left as soon as they arrived, but four of them stayed. They tore my clothes to pieces and started to rape me one after another while the others watched. After that catastrophic experience I lost consciousness.

When I awoke I was still in the same place. After regaining some strength, I got up and wandered aimlessly in the streets. Seeing me like this, the Interahamwe raped me again several times. A few days after the rape I felt unwell and thought that it was because of hunger and the rape. At the time I knew nothing about pregnancy because the rape was the first time I had sexual intercourse.

Not realising that I could be pregnant, I continued to think that the illness was related to the rape. Once I found out, I felt intensely downhearted. If I had knowledge on how to abort, I would have done that. It was very difficult for me to accept that I was pregnant from the Interahamwe.

To read Mameritha’s full story, click this link (opens as PDF)

To view the full list of stories, which will be updated every two weeks from April until July, please click this link.

Rwanda: 20 years after the genocide, one woman explains how she overcame the horrors of her past

Over the course of 100 days, over 800,000 people were killed for being part of a different ethnic community. To date, the Rwandan Genocide of 1994 remains the largest of modern times.

Twenty-years later, the effects are still being felt across the country, and to understand the effects we are publishing 10 stories from female victims of sexual violence who are still overcoming the effects of this genocide.

In our third story, we hear from 40-year-old Hildegarde Nyampinga who vividly recalls the beginning of the genocide, the murder of her parents, and the horrifying ordeal she endured afterwards as gangs of men raped her.

It took years for Hildegarde to come to terms with what she had experienced but, slowly, she began to move on. And although today Hildegarde still suffers from the rape and torture she suffered – her battle against HIV is notable in particular – therapy has helped her to forgive.

You can read an extract of her story “I died and was resurrected” below. To read her full story, click this link. And to read the stories of the other brave women featured in our campaign, click this link.

Hildegarde’s story

I was born in 1974 in the Southern Province of Rwanda, where I grew up with my ten siblings. I moved after the genocide.

Illustration courtesy of Danish artist Yildiz Arslan

Today, I live in Bugesera District, in the Eastern Province. My parents were killed during the 1994 genocide. Before they died, I had a very good life. The affection I was given by my aunt is the most pleasant thing I can remember from my life before the genocide. Since my aunt was also killed during the genocide, I cannot enjoy getting her affection anymore.

Even though I was sometimes tortured by the secretary of our commune, who used to tell me that once the war started they would violate me with a piece of tree in my vagina, I never thought a genocide would happen. It was in 1992 that I saw Tutsis being killed for the first time. Before the soldiers killed them, they made them dig the holes into which they would be thrown.

Once, on the way to visit my relatives who were refugees at the Catholic Church of Nyamata, I was taken out of the bus and almost raped by soldiers. Another Tutsi passenger was killed in front of my eyes. I went home very scared, but still it did not enter my mind that genocide could happen in my home area.

I experienced the genocide in the South where I grew up. One day, my sister’s domestic worker, who was married to a Hutu, came  and told us that we should not go to sleep because the plane of the president had crashed. That raised ethnic tensions and immediately touched off heaving fighting around the presidential palace and a frenzy of killing of Tutsis. That same night, I observed houses being burnt down. We slept outside of our house. After three days, the killings in our area started.

Perpetrators came to our house asking for me. I was with my parents. With a big abscess on his buttocks, my father could not run. On the fourth day, while I was discussing with my father about whether to carry him on my back in order to search for a place to hide, a crowd of Interahamwe and Burundian refugees caught us at our place. I saw the Interahamwe cutting off my father’s neck with a machete, after they had hit him with a hoe on the head. They threw him into our old latrine. I cannot say what went through my mind while they were cutting him.

Afterwards, they also killed my mother and threw her into the same latrine as my father. Then they decided to rape me.

To read Hildegarde’s full story, click this link (opens as PDF)

To view the full list of stories, which will be updated every two weeks from April until July, please click this link.

Rwanda: 20 years after the genocide

Over the course of 100 days, over 800,000 people were killed for being part of a different ethnic community. Behind the numbers, people lost loved ones, their homes, and their lives to the hands of the military, the police, neighbours, and even friends.

The Rwandan Genocide of 1994 remains the largest of modern times.

Twenty-years later, the effects are still being felt across the country. But perhaps those who suffered the most are women, many of whom were victims of sexual violence and torture.

Every 10 days, over the next 100 days – which marks the period of the genocide – we shall be publishing a story of survival from one of the many female victims of the conflict. Their stories are among some of the most detailed and horrifying, but also among the most hopeful as they describe how they overcame the effects of rape through rehabilitation.

To mark the beginning of the campaign, we have published three stories relating to the genocide. The first comes from Rwandan IRCT member Uyisenga N’Manzi, who are working with orphans from the genocide to help them rebuild their lives.

The other two stories are the first of the collection from female survivors of torture. You can read the introduction to these stories below, or click here for the full list of stories.

Illuminée’s story

Picture courtesy Yildiz Arslan

My name is Illuminée Munyabugingo. The 1994 genocide against Tutsis happened when I was thirty-four years old. I was born in Kigali in a camp for internally displaced persons. My family had moved there from Eastern Province because of the 1959 massacres of Tutsis. We were a family with sixteen children. During the 1959 massacres, the house of my family was not destroyed as it was during the 1994 genocide. People still had kindness when I was younger.

My mother died a few years later when I was fourteen years old. In 1979 I married a man from a prosperous family. I lived with my husband in Bugesera until the genocide started in 1994. We had a good life and together had seven children. The 1994 genocide took my beloved husband, two of my children and thirteen of my siblings.

The genocide was in many ways different from the previous wars of 1959, 1963, 1967 and 1973. In those wars, a person could hide in the house of a neighbour. In 1994 no one was willing to rescue another person. I had never realised before that someone can kill his or her neighbour, slay an innocent child or even kill his own sibling. What I experienced then brought me far in my thoughts, it traumatized me deeply, up to a point that I thought God had forgotten me.

To read Illuminee’s full story, click this link (opens pdf)

Charline’s story

Picture courtesy Yildiz Arslan

I am Charline Musaniwabo. I was born in 1976. My parents were farmers. I lived with them up to April 1994. My life completely changed during the genocide, having been married forcibly and losing many of my family members. I was born into a family of nine children, four boys and five girls. Five siblings and both my parents died during the genocide. Four of us escaped. I did not get a chance to marry a man I loved, because I was taken by force in 1994 by a neighbour who raped and married me. I live with the three children I conceived with this man.

In 1992, genocide took place in Bugesera. In Murama and Kanzenze, people were killed. Hutus burnt Tutsi houses, but in our area nobody was killed. They only ate cows belonging to Tutsi people. Despite all of this, when the 1994 genocide started I still
did not think that as many people would be killed as were indeed killed. The genocide mayhem spread everywhere.

When it began, my whole family left our house in order to look for a place to hide. I took my things and gave them to a friend of mine who was a Hutu girl so that she could keep them for me. After giving her my stuff, my sister-in-law and I went to hide at the home of our Hutu neighbour, who was a Pentecostal Church member. We stayed in his house for two days and on the third day we went to a nearby primary school, thinking that it would be a safer place. We spent two days in the school while the war violence increased. Men who were with us advised us to look for another place to hide because things were getting worse. Since we had nowhere else to go, we took refuge in a nearby swamp where, after four days, a club of Interahamwe found us hiding there.

To read Charline’s full story, click this link (opens pdf)

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Explained: The rights of torture survivors

A new video from the European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights (ECCHR) uses compelling interviews with leading professionals in the anti-torture field not only to explain the rights of torture victims, but to highlight existing barriers to torture rehabilitation.

Manfred Nowak speaking in the film

The video, which features Dr. Mechthild Wenk-Ansohn from BZFO, an IRCT member, and IRCT patron and former UN Special Rapporteur on Torture Manfred Nowak, discusses what rights torture survivors have under the United Nations Convention Against Torture.

“Torture is one of the most serious human rights violations,” says Manfred Nowak in the piece. “Because of this, torture survivors are in need of whatever support and rehabilitation is available to overcome their experience of torture.

“Yet most of the time, rehabilitation is provided by centres in urgent need of money. There needs to be force on to states to provide full rehabilitation.”

The ECCHR is a human rights group which focuses on providing human rights litigation to hold state and non-state actors accountable for the violations of the rights of the most vulnerable.

It is their hope that with video pieces, such as this, more people will understand just how prevalent torture is around the world and what ore needs to be done to stop it.

You can watch the video below.