Support Asylee Survivors of Torture and Trauma

People seeking asylum are survivors of state-sponsored torture.

They were simply attending a peaceful protest in a public square when the army attacked; tear gas burned their eyes as soldiers beat people with batons.

They were arrested, swept up randomly.

Armed, masked men in plain clothes approached them and took them into unmarked cars.

They sat in the back of the car, hearts pounding. They were petrified. They may have already heard stories of others being tortured or murdered. That’s how it works: The stories are meant to scare the population into passivity. But not today; today they were courageous. And now they are blindfolded, taken into a cell, sometimes alone, sometimes with others. Eventually the door opens, and it begins.

So many narratives of torture and state oppression start like this. And tragically, this story has been repeating in countries all over the world for decades. Torture is designed to break the spirit of individuals and whole communities. Torture is a government’s attempt to dehumanize the survivor. But less often discussed is the fact that torture necessarily dehumanizes both the perpetrator and their nation as a whole. Torture barbarizes the government and rots civil society from the inside. Everyone implicitly knows it’s inhuman, and it becomes a dark, heavy, ugly secret shared among bystanders.

Specialized Treatment Programs for Torture Survivors

Starting in the 1970s, medical and mental health care providers began organizing specialized treatment programs to address the particular needs of people who survive torture. Treatment centers began popping up around the world, started by committed volunteer physicians, psychologists, and social workers. Word spread.

In 1984, the United Nations passed the Convention Against Torture, a treaty signed by nearly every country in the world. It requires signatories to prevent torture in areas of their national jurisdiction. Equally important, signatory countries are required to receive asylum applicants who have a well-founded fear of torture or persecution if returned to their country of origin. The United States signed this treaty under President Ronald Reagan. In the 1990s, in response to a steady flow of asylum seekers from Central and South America, West Asia, and Africa, treatment centers opened in cities across the United States.

Declaration of International Day in Support of Victims of Torture

By 1997, the United Nations declared June 26 as International Day in Support of Victims of Torture. The spirit of the declaration is both to make it known that torture as a practice should be banned and to support and stand with those who have survived.

Today, torture survivors arrive seeking asylum in the United States from all corners of the globe, often crossing the southern border, often detained in private prisons awaiting an asylum hearing. Their stories include the union organizer from a country in West Africa who was captured, tortured, and released, and who went right back to organizing. The woman’s rights activist from Iran, part of a movement of mutual aid supporters of the protests. The farmer caught up in a civil war, targeted for their ethnicity.

While they come from different places and share different stories, the methods of torture they survived are universal: suspended by the arms or wrists for hours, withholding of food, hours-long daily interrogations for weeks, video recording of humiliation and threats to post it on social media, beating, burning, electrocution. They also share the posttraumatic stress disorder symptoms most people have in response to torture: nightmares, insomnia, a constant feeling of being watched or under threat, an urge to isolate, and feeling broken, never safe.

The path of recovery for survivors is one of staying connected to who they are and what they value, of joining with others through kindness, respect, understanding, and care. Things we all need. The effects of torture are socially corrosive, insidious, and implicate every member of the human family. By upholding hospitality and the conviction that torture is unacceptable in our civilization, each of us takes part in saying no to torture.

On June 26, treatment centers all over the world celebrate and commemorate, as a chance to come together as caring community and a resilient family. It’s people sharing their food, music, poetry, and joyous company.

In the late '90s, my colleagues and I felt we were part of a movement that would build momentum. We believed that once people learned about the practices of torture happening in the world, compassion would create popular support. Twenty years later, it turns out the road is longer than we anticipated, but we are determined.

This June 26, people all over the world will continue to come together and remember those who were tortured, those who are seeking safety, and the courage of survivors and asylum seekers. If you believe in human rights and dignity, and the right of every person to live in a world without torture, consider supporting the cause. Light a candle. Get involved. We all need it.

Learn more from groups like the Center for Victims of Torture or Physicians for Human Rights.

Photo credit: Photo by Joanna Kosinska on Unsplash