Image by Jim Kuhn and licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license.
June 26 is the United Nations International Day in Support of Victims of Torture—an important if mostly neglected reminder that torture continues to victimize people around the world today–often at the behest of powerful forces within the US government. Torture destroys the well-being of millions of direct victims as well as their loved ones. The theme for 2015 is the Right to Rehabilitation (R2R); we should never forget that victims of torture may suffer for a life time.
The Miriam Webster Dictionary defines torture “as the act of causing severe physical pain as a form of punishment or as a way to force someone to do or say something, something that causes mental or physical suffering, a very painful or unpleasant experience.” This is a broad definition but useful.
How many of you still feel anguish when you remember traumatic experiences of physical or psychological punishment or coercion—e.g., beatings, humiliation, terrorizing–at the hands of family members or bullies? How many of you needed either professional or other support to deal with the effects of those experiences? Can you imagine how much worse it would be to be the victim of the more commonly-acknowledged forms of torture, such as waterboarding, prolonged solitary confinement, rectal feeding, and other atrocities outlined in the recent US Senate report on torture by the CIA?
Torture is a moral issue, one that all people of conscience can address—not only on a community, national, and international level but in their own lives. See the following links for some ideas of what you might do in honor of International Day in Support of Victims of Torture… and every day.
NRCAT film, Breaking Down the Box
Today is a good day to at least think about those things.
Kathie Malley-Morrison, Professor of Psychology