Foreword All member centres of the International Rehabilitation Council for Torture Victims (IRCT) work to ensure that victims of torture have access to appropriate health-based torture rehabilitation services. It is not only in countries where torture takes place that the victims need this support. Today we see an increasing number of asylum-seekers and refugees who are victims of torture but struggle to access the appropriate medical, psychological or legal and social assistance that would constitute fair and humane treatment during the asylum procedure. The IRCT’s members in the three regions covered in this report (Europe, North America and Australia and New Zealand) share a main focus on the rehabilitation of asylum-seekers and refugees. This report is based on the work of these experts who work directly with asylum-seekers and refugees to provide them with medical and psychological support, access to medico-legal reports and legal and social assistance during the asylum procedure. In addition, the members provide the rehabilitative treatment necessary to enable asylum-seekers and refugees to integrate and function in the host country where they have sought refuge. In order to ensure their protection and access to rehabilitation, the early identification of asylumseekers who have suffered traumatic experiences such as torture is a key issue for all organisations involved in the field of asylum. The wider use and acceptance as evidence of medico-legal reports, which meet the internationally recognised standards outlined by the Istanbul Protocol, also plays an essential role in asylum proceedings involving victims of torture. The introduction of a systematic early identification process of victims is therefore fundamental. The IRCT has compiled this comparative overview on the early identification of victims of torture and the use and acceptance of medico-legal reports as evidence in asylum proceedings in regions where these issues are particularly relevant to our membership. The report analyses the responses from centres in 18 countries that participated in a survey. From these findings, we make a number of recommendations to stakeholders. In doing so, we hope to encourage them to address the gaps and shortfalls in the protection offered to victims of torture in national asylum procedures. This report comes at a time when positive developments are taking place. Within the European Union, for example, the legal revisions of the Common European Asylum System (CEAS) were formally adopted in July 2013. These revisions create new obligations for the EU Member States to identify, through individual assessments, whether applicants are vulnerable persons who have special reception and/ or procedural needs. In addition, EU institutions and EU Member States have shown a great interest in the application of the PROTECT-ABLE tool (a project supported by the IRCT), which has proven beneficial and cost-efficient for both national governments as well as rehabilitation centres as a way of screening for victims of torture. However, there remains much to be done. Many of our members struggle financially to provide the best possible services to torture victims, including in the countries covered in this report. This is despite growing national and multilateral recognition of the right to rehabilitation as an absolute obligation within a victim of torture’s right to reparation. IRCT members will continue to promote states’ accountability for the provision of adequate and holistic rehabilitation to torture victims, including asylum-seekers and refugees. We encourage stakeholders to unite with IRCT members to work towards our global vision of a world without torture. Victor Madrigal-Borloz, Secretary General, IRCT Recognising victims of torture in national asylum procedures / 5