resources impacts directly on the ability of many of them to offer adequate and appropriate psychosocial support to all clients involved in legal proceedings. The challenges that most rehabilitation centres encounter when providing psychosocial support are in many cases accentuated by a lack or scarcity of alternative assistance offered by courts and other state authorities. This underlines the urgent need for external actors to offer more funding and technical assistance, in particular state authorities with responsibility for financing courts and tribunals. Without this financial support, it seems unlikely that appropriate psychosocial support can be made available as a matter of course to all torture victims who want to exercise their right to redress by participating in the judicial process. State Parties to the UN Convention against Torture have an obligation to provide redress and access to fair and adequate compensation, including the means for as full rehabilitation as possible, yet many states still need to fully recognise and assume this responsibility.14 In the meantime, many hundreds of torture victims either participate in legal processes without the appropriate psychosocial support, or are unable even to access justice. For those victims that do pursue justice, re-traumatisation and a lack of care and support will disadvantage many. A lack of adequate support services available to victims dissuades many from participating in legal proceedings, resulting in more perpetrators evading justice, negatively impacting on the fight against impunity. Any genuine changes to the current situation will only be effective if institutionalised at a higher level. It is therefore essential that state authorities responsible for providing access to justice through court procedures and other complaints mechanisms acknowledge the importance of the torture victim’s wellbeing throughout the judicial process and act upon this by implementing measures and providing the funding necessary to improve the overall experience of torture victims pursuing justice. The IRCT recommends that the following non-exhaustive measures and practices are implemented: To state authorities Provide all torture victims with an opportunity to obtain redress: • Enact national legislation to allow torture victims an effective remedy and the right to obtain adequate and appropriate redress – including compensation and 50

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