First NZ Training on theTreatment of Torture Victims

First New Zealand Training on the Istanbul Protocol for Treatment of Torture

The first New Zealand training for doctors, lawyers and mental health practitioners who work with victims of torture is underway in Auckland from 23 June to 25 June, 2011.

World leading trainers from Denmark, Vienna and Turkey have come from the International Council for Rehabilitation of Torture Victims (ICRT) www.irct.org/ in Geneva for three days of training with 40 participants from the medical, legal, and mental health fields as well as government officials.

The training is on applying the Istanbul Protocol in the assessment and rehabilitation of survivors of torture and trauma. The Istanbul Protocol was a landmark step established by the United Nations in 2003 as a useful tool in addressing and preventing torture. This international resource provides detailed procedures and practical guidelines for medical, mental health and legal specialists on how to recognise and document evidence assisting in due legal process and in rehabilitation of survivors, in persecution of perpetrators, and in prevention torture.

The training is a collaborative initiative of RASNZ www.rasnz.co.nz/ , the refugee health agency, UNHCR, the United Nations Refugee Agency, and IRCT.

"The humanitarian nature of the New Zealand refuge quota composition includes a fairly high proportion of survivors of torture, says, RASNZ CEO Gary Poole. "The purpose for initiating this training is to provide for New Zealand capacity-building in international procedures for the investigation, assessment, reporting, rehabilitation and prevention of torture. The need for this training has become more apparent in light of the implementation of the new Immigration Act, 2009.

The trainers from the ICRT are Professor Thomas Wenzel, Secretary General of the International Academy of Law and Mental Health in Copenhagen, Denmark, Professor Sebnem Sebnem R. Korur Fincanci, director of Forensic Medicine at the University of Istanbul, and Dr Alice Verghese fro m the ICRT in Geneva. Trainers from New Zealand include the internationally known immigration lawyer, Rodger Haines, QC, who lectures for the University of Auckland, Dr Martin Reeves with the Auckland Public Health Refugee Medical Centre, and Dr Grant Galpin, Consultant Psychiatrist from RASNZ.

Mr Poole noted that, "most victims of torture go on to begin new and very productive lives, but there is first so much to heal and overcome from their past experiences. One of the most profound challenges for survivors of torture is to re-establish a basic trust and faith in humanity. Torture is an abhorrent practice that has been internationally outlawed and condemned with very good reason in the modern world. Torture has been further thoroughly discredited in recent research as quite ineffective in even obtaining any reliable or useful intelligence information," he said.

"There is never any valid reason or justification for torture. Only those who have survived it or, to some extent, those who have worked with them, can convey some sense of why it must be completely stopped and never allowed to recur," he said.

New Zealand is recognised as a leading country in providing humanitarian asylum, rehabilitation and recovery for those who had suffered torture."

Reporters desiring an interview with Professor Wenzel my contact RASNZ during the period of the training which is being held at the Maritime Voyager Room at the Viaduct Harbour.

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