The new provisions include: • A list of vulnerable persons, who may have special reception needs, to include “persons who have been subjected to torture, rape, or other forms of psychological, physical or sexual violence, such as victims of female genital mutilation” (Article 21). • An obligation is placed on Member States to assess whether a vulnerable person has special reception needs100. The assessment mechanism needs to be initiated within “a reasonable period of time” after the application for international protection has been made (Article 22). • An obligation is placed on officials working with victims of torture, rape or other serious acts of violence to have had, and continue to receive, “appropriate training concerning their needs” and to be bound by the confidentiality rules in their national legislation (Article 25(2)). • An obligation to provide necessary health care, including at least “emergency care and essential treatment of illnesses and of serious mental disorders”. Member States are obliged to “provide necessary medical or other assistance to applicants who have special reception needs, including appropriate mental health care” (Article 19). In the specific case of victims of torture and violence, “Member States shall ensure that persons who have been subjected to torture [...] receive the necessary treatment for the damage caused by such acts, in particular access to appropriate medical and psychological treatment or care” (Article 25(1)). The amended RCD is clearly an improvement on the 2003 version of the directive as its provisions now explicitly consider the situation of vulnerable asylum-seekers with special needs, including VoTs. The IRCT welcomes the obligation that the recast RCD places on EU Member States to identify VoTs within the asylum procedure and then to assess whether they have special reception needs, including the need to access “appropriate medical and psychological treatment or care”.101 Training is also identified as a requirement for staff working with VoTs, another positive addition. It should be noted too, that the recast RCD places an obligation on Member States to finance training.102 However, the IRCT considers that the improvements to the renegotiated RCD are weak and some provisions remain ambiguous, leaving much room for interpretation by Member States, which could potentially endanger the rights of VoTs. For example, too much discretion is allowed to Member States to decide “the reasonable period of time” within which the assessment of vulnerable persons should be carried out. This fails to recognise that it is essential that vulnerable persons’ special needs are identified as early as possible in the asylum procedure, not only to ensure that any physical or mental health problems do not deteriorate, but also to ensure that the authorities are made aware of any issues that may affect the applicant’s ability to present their case consistently and coherently. In addition, Member States are left with a large discretion to interpret the provision on access to health care, in particular what is “appropriate medical and psychological treatment or care”. This discretion is potentially harmful to VoTs as symptoms, such as PTSD or depression, which can have a negative impact on a person’s memory and ability to recount events, may be left untreated. It is also disappointing that the reference to “appropriate medical and psychological treatment” fails to clearly refer to rehabilitation services. This fails to consider that EU Member States’ obligations under the UNCAT are to provide for as full rehabilitation as possible, by ensuring that specialist services are available, appropriate and readily accessible and that rehabilitation services should be provided to VoTs “as soon as possible following an assessment by qualified independent medical professionals”103. How can mechanisms be provided to support the early identification of victims of torture? As the findings in Part 2 highlight, centres in the majority of countries participating in this report (72 percent) do not have a procedure in place to identify VoTs within the national asylum procedure. 56 / Recognising victims of torture in national asylum procedures