Showing papers on "Torture published in 1998"

Impact of Torture on Refugees Displaced Within the Developing World Symptomatology Among Bhutanese Refugees in Nepal

Abstract: Context.—Most of the world's refugees are displaced within the developing world. The impact of torture on such refugees is unknown.Objective.—To examine the impact of torture on Bhutanese refugees in Nepal.Design.—Case-control survey. Interviews were conducted by local physicians and included demographics, questions related to the torture experienced, a checklist of 40 medical complaints, and measures of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), anxiety, and depression.Setting.—Bhutanese refugee community in the United Nations refugee camps in the Terai in eastern Nepal.Participants.—A random sample of 526 tortured refugees and a control group of 526 nontortured refugees matched for age and sex.Main Outcome Measures.—The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Revised Third Edition (DSM-III-R) criteria for PTSD and the Hopkins Symptom Checklist-25 (HSCL-25) for depression and anxiety.Results.—The 2 groups were similar on most demographic variables. The tortured refugees, as a group, suffered more on 15 of 17 DSM-III-R PTSD symptoms (P<.005) and had higher HSCL-25 anxiety and depression scores (P<.001) than nontortured refugees. Logistic regression analysis showed that history of torture predicted PTSD symptoms (odds ratio [OR], 4.6; 95% confidence interval [CI], 2.7-8.0), depression symptoms (OR, 1.9; 95% CI, 1.4-2.6), and anxiety symptoms (OR, 1.5; 95% CI, 1.1-1.9). Torture survivors who were Buddhist were less likely to be depressed (OR, 0.5; 95% CI, 0.3-0.9) or anxious (OR, 0.7; 95% CI, 0.4-1.0). Those who were male were less likely to experience anxiety (OR, 0.66; 95% CI, 0.44-1.00). Tortured refugees also presented more musculoskeletal system– and respiratory system–related complaints (P<.001 for both).Conclusion.—Torture plays a significant role in the development of PTSD, depression, and anxiety symptoms among refugees from Bhutan living in the developing world.

The dose-effect relationships between torture and psychiatric symptoms in Vietnamese ex-political detainees and a comparison group.

Abstract: The purpose of this study was to determine in Vietnamese ex-political detainees newly arrived into the United States a) the prevalence of torture and psychiatric symptoms and b) the dose-effect relationships between cumulative torture experience and the psychiatric symptoms of posttraumatic stress d

Refugee trauma versus torture trauma : A retrospective controlled cohort study of Tibetan refugees

Abstract: A retrospective cohort study of 35 refugee Tibetan nuns and lay students who were arrested and tortured in Tibet matched with 35 controls who were not arrested or tortured was carried out in India. Subjects were administered the Hopkins Checklist-25, evaluating anxiety symptoms, effective disturbances, somatic complaints, and social impairment. The prevalence of symptom scores in the clinical range for both cohorts was 41.4% for anxiety symptoms and 14.3% for depressive symptoms. The torture survivors had a statistically significant higher proportion of elevated anxiety scores than did the nontortured cohort (54.3% vs. 28.6%, p = .05). This was not true for elevated depressive scores. The results suggest that torture has long-term consequences on mental health over and above the effects of being uprooted, fleeing one's country, and living in exile as a refugee, though the additional effects were small. Political commitment, social support in exile, and prior knowledge of and preparedness for confinement and torture in the imprisoned cohort served to foster resilience against psychological sequelae. The contribution of Buddhist spirituality plays an active role in the development of protective coping mechanisms among Tibetan refugees.

A lexicon of terror : Argentina and the legacies of torture

Abstract: Preface Acknowledgments Introduction: The Gentlemen's Coup 1. A Lexicon of Terror 2. Night and Fog 3. "Life Here Is Normal" 4. The Land of Mourneth 5. The House of the Blind 6. "The Scilingo Effect" The Past Is a Predator Notes Selected Bibliography Index

Hungry Ghosts: Mao's Secret Famine

Abstract: In the tradition of John Hersey's "Hiroshima," journalist Jasper Becker's penetrating account of China's four-year famine uncovers the truth behind one of the darkest chapters in history. "Hungry Ghosts" is the horrific story of the state-sponsored terror, cannibalism, torture, and murder during Mao Zedong's "Great Leap Forward, " an attempt at utopian engineering gone wrong. This is the unforgettable story of the century's greatest human rights disaster, in which more people died than in Stalin's purges and the Holocaust put together. Becker conducted hundreds of interviews and spent years immersed in painstaking detective work to examine the unprecedented madness that plagued China between 1958 and 1962. For the first time since it was so ruthlessly and categorically erased from history, Becker unearths what really happened during these years, and how the famine and terror could have been kept a secret for so long.

Embodiment of Terror: Gendered Violence in Peacetime and Wartime in Croatia and Bosnia‐Herzegovina

Abstract: Gendered violence is not a special type of torture used only in war. Its roots are well established in peacetime. This article discusses parallels between the patterns of everyday domination and aggression during times of peace and war. Further, it discusses how metaphors and acts of rape in peacetime are transformed into symbols and acts of rape for wartime purposes. During peacetime the individual body, especially its essence--sexuality and reproduction--becomes the symbol of everyday domination and aggression. Wartime transforms individual bodies into social bodies as seen, for example, in genocidal rapes or ethnic cleansing, which are thought to purify the bloodlines. Then, institutions--that is, medical, religious, and government establishments--further reinforce the wartime process by manipulating the individual/social body into the body politic by controlling and defining "human life" and using political rapes to entice military action by the West. The final transformation (at the war's conclusion) is the reformation of the social body back into the individual body, making the individual body once again the focus of dominance and aggression as the acceptable social "order."

Political Policing: The United States and Latin America

Abstract: Reconstructing eighty years of history, Political Policing examines the nature and consequences of U.S. police training in Brazil and other Latin American countries. With data from a wide range of primary sources, including previously classified U.S. and Brazilian government documents, Martha K. Huggins uncovers how U.S. strategies to gain political control through police assistance - in the name of hemispheric and national security - has spawned torture, murder, and death squads in Latin America. After a historical review of policing in the United States and Europe over the past century, Huggins reveals how the United States, in order to protect and strengthen its position in the world system, has used police assistance to establish intelligence and other social control infrastructures in foreign countries. The U.S.-encouraged centralization of Latin American internal security systems, Huggins claims, has led to the militarization of the police and, in turn, to an increase in state-sanctioned violence. Furthermore, Political Policing shows how a domestic police force - when trained by another government - can lose its power over legitimate crime as it becomes a tool for the international interests of the nation that trains it. Pointing to U.S. responsibility for violations of human rights by foreign security forces, Political Policing will provoke discussion among those interested in international relations, criminal justice, human rights, and the sociology of policing.

Torture and Eucharist: Theology, Politics, and the Body of Christ

Abstract: Acknowledgements. Introduction. Part I: Torture and Disappearance as an Ecclesiological Problem:. 1. Torture as Liturgy. 2. Torture and Fragmentation. 3. The Striptease of Power. 4. Habeas Corpus. Conclusion. Part II: The Church Learns How to be Oppressed:. 5. Christians for Socialism. 6."Torture Isna t Everything". 7. The Stubborn Monkey. 8. "I Am Jesus, Whom You Are Persecuting". 9. The Church as Russia. Part III: The Ecclesiology of a Disappearing Church:. 10. An Amiable Divorce. 11. The Rise of "Social Catholicism". 12. Catholic Action in Chile. Part IV: A Distinction of Planes:. 13. Maritain Among Us. 14. The Minimum of Body. 15. New Christendom. 16. The Disappearance of the Church. 17. The End of the Story. Part V: The True Body of Christ:. 18. The Mystical and the True. 19. Until He Comes. 20. Re--membering Christ. 21. Making the Body Visible. Part VI: Performing the Body of Christ:. 22. "But Father, Look at This Body". 23. Knitting the Social Fabric. 24. Mysterious Channels. 25. Torture and Eucharist. Index.

Human rights fifty years on: a reappraisal

Abstract: This book offers a critical reappraisal of the project for universal human rights. The twentieth, thirtieth and fortieth anniversaries of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights were all marked by the publication of volumes that celebrated achievements in the field of human rights. Many of these took a self-congratulatory line that emphasized progress on the protection of human rights, ignoring the facts of torture, genocide, structural deprivation and the routine exclusion of some groups from political, economic and social participation. This book brings together some of the leading critics of the current project for universal human rights, including Noam Chomsky and Johan Galtung, as a counterweight to triumphalist approaches on the fiftieth anniversary of the Declaration.

This Time We Knew: Western Responses to Genocide in Bosnia

Abstract: We didn't know. For half a century, Western politicians and intellectuals have so explained away their inaction in the face of genocide in World War II. In stark contrast, Western observers today face a daily barrage of information and images, from CNN, the Internet, and newspapers about the parties and individuals responsible for the current Balkan War and crimes against humanity. The stories, often accompanied by video or pictures of rape, torture, mass graves, and ethnic cleansing, available almost instantaneously, do not allow even the most uninterested viewer to ignore the grim reality of genocide. And yet, while information abounds, so do rationalizations for non-intervention in Balkan affairs - the threshold of real genocide has yet to be reached in Bosnia; all sides are equally guilty; Islamic fundamentalism in Bosnia is a threat to the West; it will only end when they all tire of killing each other - to name but a few. In This Time We Knew, Thomas Cushman and Stjepan G. Mestrovic have put together a collection of critical, reflective, essays that offer detailed sociological, political, and historical analyses of western responses to the war. This volume punctures once and for all common excuses for Western inaction. This Time We Knew further reveals the reasons why these rationalizations have persisted and led to the West's failure to intercede, in the face of incontrovertible evidence, in the most egregious crimes against humanity to occur in Europe since World War II. Contributors to the volume include Kai Erickson, Jean Baudrillard, Mark Almond, David Riesman, Daniel Kofman, Brendan Simms, Daniele Conversi, Brad Kagan Blitz, James J. Sadkovich, and Sheri Fink.

Scarred Minds: The Psychological Impact of War on Sri Lankan Tamils

Abstract: Background The War Years, 1983-1997 Psychological Causes of War The Psychological Effects of War Psychiatric Sequelae to a Chronic Civil War Psychological Impact of an Acute War The Psychological After-Effects of Torture A Survey of Sri Lankan Ex-Detainees Management

Caring for victims of torture

Abstract: Section I: History and Politics Torture: history, treatment, and medical complicity The science and politics of rehabilitating torture survivors: an overview Section II: Identifying and Defining Sequelae Diagnosis of governmental torture Three categories of victimization among refugees in a psychiatric clinic Section III: Framework for Assessment and Treatment The physician's role in assessment and treatment of torture survivors How medical assessment of victims of torture relates to psychiatric care Section IV: Specific Treatment Interventions Psychoanalytically oriented psychotherapy with torture survivors Behavioral and cognitive treatment of survivors of torture Conceptual models and psychopharmacological treatment of torture victims Section V: Ethical Implications Countertransference and ethical principles for treatment of torture survivors Preventing the involvement of physicians in torture Section VI: Voices From The Field: Politics and Caregiving Forced disappearance: a particular form of torture Caring for survivors of torture: beyond the clinic Caring for victims on site: Bosnian refugees in Croatia Index

Preventing Torture and Rehabilitating Survivors in Nepal

Abstract: Preventing torture and rehabilitating survivors in a country that practices torture is difficult but possible. The Center for the Victims of Torture Nepal (CVICT) documents and treats torture survivors in four ways: (a) fact-finding teams, (b) referrals to its clinic in Kathmandu, (c) prison visits, and (d) a community-based rehabilitation program for Bhutanese refugees. In addition, the center also conducts research in four ways: (a) a quantitative matched-control study of tortured refugees to identify consequences of torture, (b) a case note survey, (c) a narrative study to identify local idioms of distress, and (d) focus groups to identify issues pertinent in the local context.

Suicidal behavior after severe trauma. Part 2: The association between methods of torture and of suicidal ideation in posttraumatic stress disotrder

Abstract: The study reports on 65 refugees with diagnoses of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and manifest suicidal behavior (40% had suicide attempts; 29% detailed suicide plan; 31% recurrent suicidal thoughts). Our hypothesis was that the predominant kind of stressful experience in PTSD patients might be reflected in their choice of method when pondering or attempting suicide. Relationships were found to exist between the main stressors and the respective subjects' preference for suicide method. Particularly among PTSD patients with a history of torture, an association was found between the torture methods that the victim had been exposed to, and the suicide method used in ideation or attempts. Blunt force applied to the head and body was associated with jumping from a height or in front of trains, water torture with drowning, or sharp force torture with methods involving self-inflicted stabbing or cutting. Relationships between main stressors and content of suicidal ideation are discussed.

Between Vengeance and Forgiveness: South Africa's Truth and Reconciliation Commission

Abstract: Citizens of South Africa are confronting a painful past through the new nation's Truth and Reconciliation Commission, or TRC, which thus far has heard thousands of reports (many televised) about murders, torture, and other human rights abuses that took place during the apartheid era. South Africa's TRC is grounded in a constitutional commitment to the African concept of “ubuntu,” or humaneness. Amnesty is available on a conditional basis to alleged perpetrators. The author assesses the potential restorative power of truth-telling; the significance of sympathetic witnesses; and the tasks of both perpetrators and bystanders in the TRC process. Aspirations for justice are considered along with restoring dignity to victims, offering a basis for individual healing, and promoting reconciliation of a divided society.

Flight from Chile : voices of exile

Abstract: Mass arrests, torture, and executions followed General Pinochet's coup on September 11, 1973. Almost immediately people began fleeing Chile, and over the next fifteen years some 200,000 Chileans sought exile in nearly 140 countries. Out of their anguish and anger comes the first oral history, or testimonies, of their fractured lives.Many who fled had been tortured, and they clung to the principle that the dictatorship was an evil that had to be destroyed. But their zeal and solidarity with other refugees often failed to sustain families, and the majority of marriages collapsed and children often lost interest in their native land and culture. After civilian rule emerged in 1989, many returning exiles felt estranged from a homeland forever changed. "A compelling and moving account."???Marjorie Agos???n, author of "Tapestries of Hope, Threads of Love: The Arpillera Movement in Chile, 1974-1994"

The Medical Anthropology of Political Violence: A Cultural and Feminist Agenda

Abstract: s this volume of MAQ attests, the study of political violence and warfare has become an active site for theoretical and empirical exchanges in medical anthropology.' The reasons for this development can be articulated in global and specific terms. Globally, the unprecedented making and unmaking of violent conflicts in the twentieth century provokes the anthropological question of what it is to be human. This question is pressing whether it is formulated by grieving relatives at mass grave sites in Bosnia-Herzegovina, attending physicians who judge "when to say 'when' " during torture sessions in El Salvador, or scholars, regardless of whether they consider violence to be a natural tendency or a socialized construction. Indeed, warfare and political violence invariably tap into the deepest existential currents of life and death, good and evil, and sickness and health. The making and unmaking of violence must also be set forth specifically in terms of issues that are central to medical anthropology: (1) the cultural structuring and personal, embodied experience of violence; (2) the aftermath of violence and warfare manifest as damage, distress, and disease on the one hand, and resilience, resistance, and healing on the other; and (3) the gender, class, and ethnic dimensions of violence as enacted or endured. The foregoing articles address these issues either implicitly or explicitly with varying degrees of clarity. Before considering the individual contributions, however, I begin by setting forth an analytic summary of cultural issues in theorizing violence.

Methodological issues in the use of survey questionnaires to assess the health effects of torture.

Abstract: It has become increasingly important to identify torture survivors among subgroups of the American population and to assess the continuing health effects of torture experience. To determine whether survey questionnaires can be effectively used to make such assessments, we reviewed the recent literature on refugee health, on the measurement and treatment of trauma, and in the related areas of survey methodology and cognitive psychology. We conclude that, if properly conducted, the survey approach represents an effective method, and we propose specific recommendations concerning procedures that may be used in surveys of torture survivors to maximize study validity.

Does Article 3 of The European Convention on Human Rights Enshrine Absolute Rights

Abstract: Article 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights, which prohibits torture and other forms of ill-treatment, does not expressly provide that its terms are absolute. Nevertheless, the idea that Article 3 contains absolute rights is generally accepted. This article explores the concept of absolute rights in Article 3, both with reference to theoretical considerations and in the light of Strasbourg case law. It concludes that the notion of absolute rights is nebulous because it involves an assessment of subjective factors and that it is best understood within the wider context of the Convention as a whole.

Raids on Human Consciousness: Writing, Anarchism, and Violence

Abstract: Confronts the representation of violence and the violence of representation. However one looks at violence - as an instrument of bureaucracy or ideology; as a product of racial, gender, or class antagonisms; or as the inevitable result of power politics - it is an integral part of every social system and is one of the most pressing problems of our tortured century. In Raids on Human Consciousness Arthur Redding examines the contention that violence, be it the mass product of revolutionary uprising or a private sadomasochistic indulgence, may be taken to instill in those who commit it the capacity for radical change. Conscious that mainstream theory considers violence deviant, a departure from the normal equilibrium of social and aesthetic structures, while other critiques take it to be integral to any dynamic system, Redding begins with the anarchist inquiry into the relationship of violence to the imaginary representation of modern communities. He explores the "public images" of anarchism in literature and popular culture and emphasizes the diverse strategies by which modern writers encounter, derive, deflect, and manipulate fantasies of political violence. The resurgent interest in anarchist thought among the New Left and its implications for contemporary writers become the basis for an extended meditation on the revolutionary or transgressive potential of transformative violence, particularly in the masochistic writings of Kathy Acker. Redding recognizes that language fails when confronted with the extreme suffering of human bodies. Acknowledging that flesh is subject to war, torture, and everyday brutality - violations to which language can never do justice - he nonetheless finds it urgent to reclaim language on the far side of suffering.

Human Rights and Policing:Standards for Good Behaviour and a Strategy for Change

Abstract: Foreword. Tables of Cases. Table of International Instruments. Introduction. Part One: The Democratic Framework: Law and Ethics. 1. The International System for the Protection of Human Rights. 2. Human Rights and Policing. 3. Human Rights, Democracy and Policing. 4. Human Rights and Police Ethics. Part Two: Social Order: Humanity and Force. 5. The Law of Rights and the Law of Conflict. 6. A Measure of Humanity. 7.The Right to Life and the Use of Force. 8.The Use of Force by Police. 9. Good Behaviour and Best Practice. Part Three: The Treatment of Suspects: Decency and Detention. 10. The Phenomenon of Torture. 11. The Prohibition of Torture and Ill-Treatment under International Law. 12. The Rights of Detainees. 13. The International Norms and Standards on Interviewing. Part Four: Investigative Interviewing: Professionalism and Best Practice. 14. Investigative Interviewing: A Professional Approach to Police Investigations. 15. Theoretical Bases for Investigative Interviewing. 16. Investigative Interviewing: Best Practice in Questioning Witnesses and Suspects. 17. Methods to Secure Good Practice: Supervision, Monitoring and Training. Part Five: Police Organizations: Management and Change. 18. International Human Rights Standards and Police Leaders. 19. The Challenge of Human Rights for Police Leaders. 20. Strategic Planning. 21.Managing the Process. 22. Implementation, Information and Eight Principles. Relevant Bibliographical Details of Authors. Bibliography. Index.

Red Rubber, Bleeding Trees: Violence, Slavery, and Empire in Northwest Amazonia, 1850-1933

Abstract: This vivid ethno-history explores the complex transformation of north-western Amazonia by the rubber boom from 1850 to 1933. During this period, the region underwent rapid and violent incorporation into the political and economic systems of Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Brazil, Western Europe, and the United States. The author examines the historical myths and realities of north-west Amazonia before its incorporation and then shows how the Indians and environment were radically altered by the rubber boom and international trade. Not merely victims, the Indians both aided and resisted economic and environmental change in subtle and contradictory ways. In 1907 allegations of the systematic enslavement, torture, and murder of Indians by the rubber industry ignited an international scandal linking antislavery power Great Britain to human bondage and focused world attention on Amazonia until the outbreak of World War I.

Torture in Brazil : a shocking report on the pervasive use of torture by Brazilian military governments, 1964-1979

Abstract: Preface to the New Edition Foreword by the Former General Secretary of the World Council of Churches Preface by the Metropolitan Archbishop of Sao Paulo Introduction to the Brazilian Edition Part 1: Cruel, Inhuman, and Degrading Punishment 1: Torture Classes: Guinea Pig Prisoners 2: Modes and Instruments of Torture 3: Torture of Children and Women 4: Medical Assistance to Torture Part II: The Repressive System 5: The Origins of the Military Regime 6: The Consolidation of the Authoritarian State 7: The History and Legal Structure of the Repressive System 8: How Suspects Were Detained Part III: Against Everything and Everybody 9: A Profile of Repression 10: Against Leftist Organizations 11: Against Targeted Social Groups 12: Against "Subversion" Part IV: Distortion of the Law 13: The Nature of Judicial Proceedings 14: Six Sample Cases Part V: "This Is Where Hell Is..." 15: The Houses of Horror 16: The Consequences of Torture 17: Deaths under Torture 18: The Disappeared Notes Appendices I. Glossary of Acronyms II. Statement on Torture by the World Council of Churches III. List of "Disappeared" Political Prisoners

Violations of Human and Civil Rights on the U.S.-Mexico Border, 1995 to 1997: A Report

Abstract: This report considers a number of complaints by persons who maintain that law enforcement officials have violated their human and civil rights. The violations include illegal search of persons and their private property, verbal, psychological, and physical abuse of persons, child abuse, deprivation of food, water, and medical attention, torture, theft, use of excessive force, assault and battery, and murder. The complaints are directed at a number of law enforcement agencies located principally in Southern California, including the U.S. Border Patrol, U.S. Customs, U.S. Port Security, the Sheriff's Departments of San Diego, Vista, San Marcos, Fallbrook, and Riverside, the San Diego Police Department, the California Highway Patrol, and the California National Guard. The Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS), including the U.S. Border Patrol, is mentioned most frequently in the majority of complaints. The subjects responsible for voicing the complaints include 267 individuals who are highly diverse with respect to age, social class, gender, life ambition, and legal status. Many are undocumented immigrants, but many others are holders of valid border crossing cards as well as citizens and legal residents of the United States. All of the subjects share an Hispanic ethnicity. The complaints were collected in two ways. First, during 1996, the San Diego office of the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC) charted a decline in the number of human and civil rights abuses reported on the northern side of the California/Baja California border. In the same year, an increase in the number of reports of abuse on the Mexican side of the border suggested that victims of abuse were being apprehended and deported before they could file reports with human rights workers in the United States. In December 1996, therefore, the AFSC-San Diego met with human rights representatives from Baja California to formulate a strategy for interviewing migrants immediately after they were deported to Mexico by U.S. authorities. As a result of this meeting, students from the Universidad Autonoma de Baja California conducted interviews from January to April, 1997, at the Tijuana, Tecate, and Mexicali ports of entry. The binational study documented 204 cases of abuse. Second, staff of the AFSC-San Diego office carried out 63 interviews of victims of human and civil rights abuses for the years 1995, 1996, and 1997. During the course of these interviews, respondents were encouraged to provide detailed narratives that identified the nature of the abuses and the contexts within which they occurred. Each narrative is highly individualized, offering a uniquely human story that provides a glimpse of the queries, shouts, interrogations, and threats that were used in the course of the law's applications, as well as the felt humiliation, intimidation, frustration, fear, and other life interruptions such applications imposed upon narrators and their family or friends. The narratives also form a collection; considered in conjunction with the binational study, they validate the following statements: 1. That violations of persons and their most basic rights by law enforcement officials are a routine occurrence; 2. That there is a pattern in the delivery of wrongful law enforcement practices; 3. That an identifiable logic motivates and legitimates such delivery; and 4. That the delivery and logic of law enforcement practices together may amount to a routinized infliction of terror upon persons who are targeted by the practices or who feel themselves likely to be so targeted. The remainder of this report further develops and provides illustrative support for the above statements. The report begins by focusing on the complaints raised by 204 persons released into Mexico after being apprehended by agents of the U.S. Border Patrol, the INS, U.S. Customs, and other law enforcement agencies. The report emphasizes the nature of the complaints and their statistical frequency, but also draws upon the additional 63 narratives to supply meaningful content to the complaints and to address the substantive practices of law enforcement at the specific points of their application. …

The human rights of street and working children

Abstract: The Human Rights of Street and Working Children is a one-stop guide both for experienced advocates and for non-specialists in the field. The manual, which presents information in an accessible question-and-answer format, is divided into three sections for ease of reference. The first section defines substantive rights - survival, fair treatment, and empowerment. The second section provides practical guidelines on how to use regional and international human rights systems such as the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, or the UN Committee on Torture. The third and last section contains a comprehensive list of human rights documents with tables by country detailing the status and the stage in the implementation process of each of the conventions in each country.

Transmission of Trauma

Abstract: Between 1976 and 1983, a military dictatorship overthrew the Argentine government and installed itself by means of state terrorism. During this period, the worst form of political repression in Argentina’s entire history was carried out. It was characterized by the illegal detention of many people in clandestine prisons and the “disappearance” of about 30,000 people, the majority of whom were killed after having endured terrible tortures; the illegal detention in known prisons of more than 10,000 people over a long period of time (more than 2 years), who also underwent torture and inhuman conditions of detention; murders, many of which were carried out to set an “example” (for instance, a few bodies were dynamited together); the kidnapping of children and the changing of their identity (more than 400 are still missing); and hundreds of thousands of people who went to other countries as refugees.1