Written evdence submitted by: Jeanne Sarson, MEd, BScN, RN & Linda MacDonald, MEd, BScN, RN (VAW 0002)

1. We submit the following information as Canadian professionals who have, for the past 20 years, provided grass root support to women who Self-identify as having survived torture perpetrated by non-State actors or private individuals, such as parent(s), intergenerational family members, guardians, spouses, traffickers, pornographers, pedophilic individuals, and groups. We specifically address this Joint Committee because we have been contacted by women from the UK who have endured such victimization, from their earliest of memories, perpetrated within the context of a family and inter-generational family system with connections to like-minded others both nationally and internationally. Some of our support has extended over many years. The women reach up via our website (www.nonstatetorture.org), then by email, phone, Facebook, and occasionally in person. They also seek out information from our published articles as well as the educational material provided on our website. Women tell us that they have been unable to find UK support or legal services that address their needs as having survived torture by non-State actor or private individuals. Because our professional focus is on gaining recognition for the socio-legal and human right of women and girls not to be subjected to torture by non-State actors, our statement only addresses this perspective.

Executive Summary and Recommendations

2. The following points are made respecting Chapters III, IV, and VI of the Council of Europe Convention on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence which obliges States to fully address gender-based violence in all its forms; these points are:

• Torture by non-State actors or private persons occurs. It must be addressed as a definite form of violence that confronts women and girls. In particular, we refer to acts of torture that are commonly referred to as “classic” torture, that is, acts that have been historically considered to be only perpetrated by State actors, ignoring or minimizing that these acts are also perpetrated by non-State actors. Examples of classic torture include: electric shocking, cutting, burning, caging and other forms of immobilization, non-fatal drowning such as being held underwater in a bathtub, depravations—of nutrition, warmth, and caring; physical beatings, whippings, bestiality, on-going sexualized rapes, family/group rapes, suffocation and choking tortures, reproductive torturers such as impregnations and forced abortions; forced drugging, denial of bathroom facilities that cause degradation and humiliation when forced to urinate and defecate on her-Self, terrorization and horrification, plus others forms of brutal traumatic dehumanization;  
• It is essential that acts of violence that amount to torture perpetrated by non-State actors is included as a crime of torture under the UK criminal or penal code because:

     Criminalizing non-State torture removes the legal discrimination women and girls so tortured confront ,

• When non-State torture is criminalized it provides women and girls with  socio-legal  inclusion, dissolves their marginalization, breaks their silence, and promotes their right to seek justice for the human right crime of non-State torture they endured, and
• It holds a non-State torturer to account this addressing the impunity—the freedom from prosecution—they presently enjoy;

  Torture-informed education and the development of appropriate interventions can occur when it is recognized that some girls and women suffer non-State torture victimization, such as:

• Non-State torture primary prevention interventions as well as protective and investigative services can be developed so that professionals such as child protection services, police investigative services, judges, and health carers will be prompted to require non-State torture-informed education and develop appropriate skills;
• Early intervention can reduce social cost that some women require, reference to one UK woman’s cost is shared in paragraph 4;

• All cultures including the cultures of so-called developed or industrialized countries such as the UK have “traditions”—the tradition and normalization of oppression and of relational violence perpetrated against women and girls which must be openly addressed; it is important not to otherize tradition solely to the cultures of developing countries for example;
• The Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW), General Recommendation 19, 7(b) states that “no one shall be subjected to torture”, applies to women and girls; the UK must uphold this mandate if women and girls are to gain human right equality as persons so they have the freedom to speak their truth, to be heard, to be believed, and to seek justice and reparations for the extensive harms non-State torturers inflict.

3. In support of the above recommendations we add that it is a due diligence obligation for the UK to address torture perpetrated by non-State actors given that the State has received the shadow report, “Women’s equality in the UK – A health check” presented to the CEDAW Committee in April 2013 by the Women’s Resource Centre. Paragraph 19.86 of it reads;

All forms of VAWG that may entail severe pain or suffering (whether physical or mental) violate the right to be free from torture or cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment.158 Discrimination exists for women/girls who suffer torture by non-state actors in the private/domestic sphere when this form of gender-based violation is not socio-legally recognised as a specific crime and a distinct violation of their human rights.159 Women and girls who are tortured in this way must be recognised as a specific vulnerable group. Unless there is a specific NST law and this law is enacted, criminal-legal data fails to record acts of gender-based NST therefore NST remains invisible. (Appendix: 34)

Reference 158: The European Court of Human Rights, interpreting Article 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights has for example held that rape is an “specially grave and abhorrent form of ill-treatment” and that the “specially cruel act of rape the victim was subjected to amounted to torture”. See, Aydin v. Turkey, European Court of Human Rights, Application No.29289/95, judgement of 25 September 1997.

Reference 159 refers to CEDAW article 1.

Recommendation: In the light of the evidence in recent years of very serious cases of failure to protect women and girls experiencing violence from very serious harm and cruelty and, in some cases, torture, further action must be taken to ensure that statutory services, including the police, social services and NHS, understand their duty to protect women and girls they know to be at risk, and to prevent abuse and torture.

4. In this shadow report were two women’s statements. One briefly detailed her need for reconstructive pelvic surgery to repair the sexualized torture suffered since childhood. Another woman did a financial analysis and productivity losses she has and continues to suffer. Her statement provides insight into the social cost of non-State torture victimization that continues to be invisibilized. She stated;

NST victimization . . . began in her earliest of childhood, lasting into her early adult years. Suffering all and more of the classic forms of torture listed above she managed to get through school and obtain a post-graduate level education by age 22. [She was u]nable to practice her profession for very long because of ongoing and increasing disabilities as a consequence of prolonged NST [non-State torture] victimization and traumatisation which included chronic overwhelming flashbacks, disorientation, and dissociation. The resulting vulnerability led to being psychologically manipulated, raped and stalked by professionals. She estimates, referring to a House of Commons Library document,11 that based on a loss of 30 years of productivity, her personal and the social financial costs have been £855,830 in loss of salary with Sickness Benefits of approximately £150,000. She has lost other benefits because she has been unable to continue working. Cost of counselling over 18 years has been about £40,000. Difficult birth of a child and health and community support services are un-tabulated costs, complications resulting from unidentified NST victimization. Severe pain and suffering caused by NST is unconscionable; during recovery of Self all the past cellular torture pain memory is re-experienced and re-felt as if happening in the here and now.

                            Reference: Bolton, P. (2008) Teachers’ pay statistics. (SN/SG/1877) House of Commons Library

http://tinyurl.com/cjl54q8

5. The UN Committee against torture, in paragraph 18 of their General Comment No. 2  Implementation of article 2 by States parties (CAT/C/GC/2, January 24, 2008) states;

that the failure of the State to exercise due diligence to intervene to stop, sanction and provide remedies to victims of torture facilitates and enables non-State actors to commit acts impermissible under the Convention with impunity, the State’s indifference or inaction provides a form of encouragement and/or de facto permission.

6. The UK now has the knowledge that torture by non-State actors occurs, thus, to meet due diligence obligations we have recommended the necessity for torture by non-State actors to be criminalize.

7. The UN Committee against torture also identified, in paragraph 3 of its General Comment No. 3 Implementation of article 14 by States parties (CAT/C/GC/3, December 13, 2012), that familiar relationships are not to be considered exempt as perpetrators. This gives support to the testimonies of the UK women who have contacted us. The Committee’s comment states;

A person should be considered a victim regardless of whether the perpetrator of the violation is identified, apprehended, prosecuted or convicted, and regardless of any familial or other relationship between the perpetrator and the victim.

8. Freedom from torture regardless of who the torturer is needs to be acknowledged as a non-derogable peremptory human right norm upheld for women and girls who have endured non-State torture victimized. Torture perpetrated by non-State actors is never to be minimized as another crime such as abuse or assault. Such a human right not to be subjected to torture is written in article 5 of the 1948 United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights, in the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), article 7; in the Declaration on the Elimination of Violence against Women, article 3(h); and in the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC), article 36 and under article 19 for non-State torture as this article specifically speaks to the reality that children have the human right to protection from all forms of harm “while in the care of parent(s), legal guardian(s) or any other person who has the care of the child”.  Freedom from torture is also identified in article 3 in the European Convention on Human Rights.

9. This brings our brief submission to closure. We thank the Joint Committee for our opportunity to advocate for the recognition that some UK women and girls are subjected to torture by non-State actors and are in dire need to have their victimization rightfully acknowledged so they can be met with respect, dignity, and non-discrimination by being included in UK society and able to seek true justice in the laws that governs their country.  They require access to reparations that will facilitate rehabilitation from services and supports that are non-State torture informed.

11 February 2014