Survivors of Human Rights Abuses

Doctors of the World-USA mobilizes the health sector in the United States and around the world to promote and protect health and human rights.  Human rights abuses, which range from forced labor and trafficking to physical and mental torture, diminish and endanger health and deprive individuals of resources and care.  DOW works at home and abroad to protect survivors from further rights violations through education, advocacy, improved access to services, and assistance in seeking asylum. 

Torture remains a deadly reality.  Nearly sixty years after the adoption of The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which proclaims that “no one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment,” torture persists in more than one hundred countries.  The International Rehabilitation Council for Torture Victims estimates that 20 to 30 percent of all refugees are torture survivors.  Each year, thousands of torture survivors fleeing persecution in their homelands seek asylum in the United States, looking to the U.S. for freedom from persecution and the chance to begin anew.

DOW’s Human Rights Clinic (HRC), our longest running project, works with survivors of torture and other human rights abuses applying for asylum in the United States.  Through the HRC, DOW trains and deploys volunteer physicians and mental health professionals to provide comprehensive medical and psychological exams and bear legal witness to torture and abuse.  With an affidavit from a DOW-trained health care professional attesting to evidence of torture, survivors seeking asylum in the United States are three times more likely to receive asylum.

Providing access and opportunity to survivors of trafficking.  In Nepal, the trafficking of women and girls for forced labor (often sexual) has become a human rights crisis; tens of thousands are trafficked into India each year.  Those survivors who are able to return to Nepal face stigmatization and discrimination within their communities, limited or non-existent access to health care and social services, and scant opportunity to support themselves.  In collaboration with local Nepali partners, DOW has set up clinics and shelters that provide a full range of medical and psychological services for survivors of trafficking and other forms of abuse. 

DOW programs in Nepal increase local capacity to provide services to survivors of trafficking and abuse through the training of public and private health providers.  Our projects improve, increase, and systematize quality rights-based health and psychosocial services available to survivors of trafficking, and provide support for the reintegration of survivors into the community through health education and vocational training.  By working closely with local partners and by training local providers to develop an effective, sustainable system for services, DOW’s project is a model of care for health providers and facilities across Nepal and the South Asia region in offering rights-based, comprehensive services for survivors of physical and sexual violence.

Nothing can erase the physical and mental anguish caused by torture and other gross human rights abuses.  DOW aims to mitigate the consequences of abuse, and prevent further abuse from occurring, by providing protection, access to care, and advocacy for survivors. 

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PROJECTS FOR SURVIVORS OF HUMAN RIGHTS ABUSES:

NEPAL: Care for Survivors of Trafficking & Abuse

UNITED STATES: Human Rights Clinic