being financially secure and relevant to the particular needs of torture victims, their families and the wider community. The Situation in Italy: Medici contro la tortura (MCT) MCT is an association of volunteer doctors, founded in 1999, with the mission to provide care to victims of intentional human violence, including torture. It runs a clinic for asylum seekers and refugees in Rome. The recent changes in international protection policies have had a number of impacts on torture survivors. Following the agreement between Italy and Libya concerning the management of transitory migration flows, the central Mediterranean route has been cut off for many migrants and refugees. This is also reflected in the number of arrivals to Italy which dropped by 26 % in 2017 compared to the previous year. Migrants, refugees and potential asylum seekers are now held in Libyan detention centers and the EU border has effectively been shifted to Libya. Another key development has been the introduction of Decree Law 13 of 17 February 2017, known as the "Minniti-Orlando Act”, which reduces the timeframe for evaluating asylum applications by removing the second-tier level of appeal against denial of a refugee status. Such appeals are now only possible before the Supreme Court of Cassation. In very practical terms, this procedural change limits the time and possibility for receiving the applicants’ “histories of torture”, which typically emerge gradually, and only after building a relation of trust that helps victims to share painful memories, including the shame associated with acknowledging their status as the survivors. An additional challenge is that survivors that are in the asylum process are forced to stay in the assigned accommodations while waiting to present their claims, during the preliminary assessment and hearings. The long stays temporary shelters with administrative functions restricts or disrupts social interventions, which is not beneficial to the rehabilitation of survivors of torture. Those challenging circumstances have required MCT to develop a high-quality response to a social and legal environment increasingly unfavorable to the rehabilitation of torture victims and to expand the association’s capacity to identify potential beneficiaries in the shortest time possible; as well as to initiate as early as possible the process of assisting them to reconstruct their stories, including for the purposes of obtaining refugee status. Recommendations Recommendations for OSCE participating States  To ensure that national legislation provides for rehabilitation of torture victims and mechanisms for funding specialized services or alternatively, amend and adapt existing legislation or policy that provides for rehabilitation to other victims’ groups, such as victims of crime, human trafficking or sexual or domestic violence to also cover torture victims and their specific needs; 20