Four factors: Assessing refugee survivors of torture in personal & cross-national

context

Jane McPherson, MSW, MPH, LCSWSocial Work Social Development 2012

Stockholm, SWEDENJuly 2012

Torture

• Convention against Torture• 74 signatories• 138 parties (http://www2.ohchr.org/english/law/cat-ratify.htm)

• Amnesty International (2009) estimates that torture is still used in over 150 countries• Number of survivors worldwide

= millions. (Quiroga & Jaranson, 2005)

Survivors: Distinct & heterogenous

• Men & women; young and old• Skilled & unskilled; rich & poor• Educated & uneducated• Political & apolitical• Beaten, raped, water-boarded, threatened, etc.• Alone, with family, with community• From all corners of the globe; all cultures; all religions

Four factors assessment

1) The torture experience & the survivor’s reaction 2) The survivor’s strengths & assets3) The survivor’s new community

& his/her social environment; 4) Laws & social policies in the new

city/country of residence.

4-Factors Assessment after Torture & Migration

Individual

Torture &Symptoms

Assessment

Individual

Strengths& Assets

Societal

CommunitySupport

Societal

Societal Support

Assessment process• Joint endeavor between survivor and worker. • De-pathologizing in its insistence that factors outside the direct control of the client be included in assessment, and therefore, intervention.• Rights-based approach. Alert to the socio-political and human- rights environment in the individual’s resettlement country. •Opportunity for survivor & worker to learn

together.

Individual traits & experiences

• Health & mental health. Standard.• Broader context of migration story. Assessment of torture experience as the client wants to tell. (Other systems may require the story. If possible, we want to give power over the story back to the survivor.• Assessing torture experience and personal strengths is supported by theories asserting that ‘preparedness’ (Basoglu, 2009), political commitment (Silove, 2009), and other individual traits influence resilience after torture.

Survivor in context: Gender

•All asylum-seekers are not disempowered equally. • Women may be “second-class citizens” even among this group of noncitizens (McPherson & Hochstetler, 2011):• know less about the asylum process• activities may not be seen as “political”• rape may not leave documentable scars• survivors may not tell a full rape story• male ways of telling are preferred

Survivor in context: Resources of the

resettlement community

• What resources does the survivor bring?• What resources does the community provide?

• In assessing the community, the worker can engage with the survivor to gauge the levels of discrimination and to

evaluate the resources available in his/her native language • Allow the potential to criticize the resettlement country.

A survivor may be both grateful & disappointed.

Survivor in context: Resources of the

resettlement community

Finally, the assessment can be used to locate the individual’s migration

experience in its global context and to interrogate the immigration and social policies of the resettlement country.

For example, does the asylum seeker immediately have the right

to healthcare and work (as in Brazil) or not (as in the United

States)?