Social assistance
Torture victims may require social assistance and urgent measures for their protection. People who have been submitted to torture or who are at risk often do not have any other choice but to leave the country in which they face grave danger and are confronted to social problems such as the loss of their job, arrest, arbitrary detention, and sometimes, the confiscation of all their belongings. The situation is even more dramatic when the victim is the family’s bread-winner. In this kind of situation, or if exile becomes necessary, OMCT can provide assistance for a limited period of time in order for the victim to overcome his most urgent difficulties.
Among the diverse forms of social assistance offered by OMCT, we can mention:
- Incurring the victim’s evacuation fees to a host country, as a measure of protection, or in order to enable family reunification.
- Protection measure: through this type of intervention, OMCT helps the victim to leave, without delay, a country in which he faces serious danger.
- Family reunification: this OMCT activity is conducted in the framework of a political asylum procedure. It concerns only the members of the family of a political refugee who are direct or indirect victims of torture.
- Incurring the living costs in the victim’s country of origin, or in a host country where he has found temporary refuge. This type of intervention is temporary by definition, and must allow the victim or his family to confront the unsolvable social difficulties they face given the exile or the loss of all their possessions. In cases of arbitrary detention, in conditions that endanger the physical or psychological integrity of the victim, this assistance also ensures a type of surveillance: the victim is no longer totally isolated from the outside world thanks to the visit of his family, which comes regularly to bring him food.
- Incurring the repatriation costs of victims to their home country.
- Incurring fees related to various urgent communications, which are required to offer direct assistance for victims.