BACKGROUND Although much research has focused on mechanisms of traumatization and factors related to post-trauma psychological functioning in survivors of trauma, there have been few studies of survivors of torture despite the widespread practice of torture in the world. The aim of this study was to examine the role of 'psychological preparedness' for trauma in post-traumatic stress responses i...

Torture survivors often report chronic debilitating physical and psychological distress. Prior research on the relationship between physical and psychological trauma suggests that the 2 are not independent. Injury sustained during torture may increase the likelihood of subsequent distress as either a moderator or mediator. For long-term psychopathology in a sample of Punjabi Sikh survivors of h...

This essay addresses some common misunderstandings about torture also perpetuated in the ongoing debates concerning "rescue" or "necessity torture" and introduces, in a comparative perspective, the structural properties of the different historical and current paradigms of organized state cruelty. Regarding "modern torture" the essay deconstructs its exceptionalism which is based on claims of a ...

Torture survivors are often reluctant to tell their stories. They typically make every effort to forget this painful, traumatic experience. Often they do not share with family, friends or healthcare professionals the fact that they have been beaten, raped or subjected to electrical shocks and other terrors. Talking means retrieving memories, triggering the feelings and emotions that accompanied...

the prohibition of torture is considered as jus cogens which, has its specific legal effects. furthermore, international law has criminalized torture and stipule that perpetrators of torture should be adequately prosecuted by any state. this paper attempts to describe briefly, the international practice against torture and to address some deficiencies in this realm with regard to violations tow...

Nearly half of the world’s 200 nations torture their citizens. Although survivors have high rates of physical and psychiatric morbidity, and in coming to this country tend to live in highly concentrated refugee groups, physicians rarely discover torture histories. Torture survivors may avoid speaking of it because they do not understand that treatment is available for their physical, psychiatri...

Torture is widely practiced throughout the world. Recent studies indicate that 50% of all countries, including 79% of the G-20 countries, continue to practice systematic torture despite a universal ban. It is well known that torture has numerous physical, psychological, and pain-related sequelae that can inflict a devastating and enduring burden on its victims. Health care professionals, partic...

Doctors are integral to the practice of modern torture. Some devise torture techniques (like rectal water infusions) in order to minimize incriminating scars. Some monitor and treat prisoners undergoing torture in order to prevent them from unintentionally dying. Some falsify medical records and death certificates to assist regimes in concealing injuries or deaths from torture. Many claim to ac...

CONTEXT After the reports of human rights abuses by the US military in Guantanamo Bay, Iraq, and Afghanistan, questions have been raised as to whether certain detention and interrogation procedures amount to torture. OBJECTIVE To examine the distinction between various forms of ill treatment and torture during captivity in terms of their relative psychological impact. DESIGN AND SETTING A c...

Sexual torture constitutes any act of sexual violence which qualifies as torture. Public awareness of the widespread use of sexual torture as a weapon of war greatly increased after the war in the former Yugoslavia in the early 1990s. Sexual torture has serious mental, physical and sexual health consequences. Attention to date has focused more on the sexual torture of women than of men, partly ...