THEMATIC REPORT 2017
REDRESS AND REPARATIONS
Looking to the future, there is considerable work to be done to
ensure that states fully implement the anti-torture legislation
they enact so that victims can access much needed redress
and reparation measures. This requires both financial
investment and political willingness, as well as continued
pressure and scrutiny from civil society organisations. In
addition, criminal justice processes including investigation
and prosecution as well as protection mechanisms need
improvement. States need to allocate budgetary resources
to reparations, including compensation and rehabilitation
in order to ensure these avenues actually exist. Finally, the
continued collection of data is a critical tool to enable states
and civil society to understand and identify where gaps lie in
the implementation of obligations surrounding redress and
reparations for torture victims.
Overview of the
Data in the Fight against Impunity (DFI) Project
Central to the development of the torture rehabilitation sector’s ability to evidence its work, is the
collection of appropriate, consistent and comparable clinical information. The Data in the Fight
against Impunity (DFI) Project is a system-wide response to creating this ability. Across the globe,
hundreds of rehabilitation centres are providing services to thousands of torture victims on a daily
basis. Through the DFI project, IRCT members have started to systematically collect data relating
to their clients in order to create long-term change. With better data it is hoped that civil society
organisations working in the field of torture prevention and rehabilitation will be able to identify
trends relevant to their work and use the data to fight impunity more effectively.
In June 2014, 12 rehabilitation centres from around the world came together to develop and test
a data collection system to enable them to collect clinical data and integrate the documentation
of torture throughout the rehabilitation process. This data can then be used to create powerful
evidence-based approaches with the potential to mobilise the public and to target governments to
act and to disseminate evidence-based outputs to support anti-impunity work. The centres started
to use the database in February 2015 and to adapt it to their clinical record-keeping practices. They
have used the data to share reports about the identity of survivors, the places they were tortured,
how they were tortured and by whom. The initial participants in the project have since been joined by
20 additional rehabilitation centres for the second phase of the project. Data is now being collected
by 33 rehabilitation centres in 28 countries.
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