Integrated psychological and legal support to torture victims

Documenta – Center for Dealing with the Past in cooperation with European House Vukovar held a training „Development of local networking and exchange of good practices between the providers of psychosocial support to torture victims and civilian victims of war“. The training was held in Vukovar on 15th and 16th June 2015. The training is part of wider efforts of advocating for compensations of civilian victims of war with an adequate rehabilitation and integration into society. Medical, psychological and legal support to victims of war are essential forms of compensation for the pain, loss and humiliation suffered, according to the Resolution of the General Assembly- Basic Principles and Guidelines on the Right to a Remedy and Reparation for Victims of Gross Violations of International Human Rights Law and Serious Violations of International Humanitarian.

The training was organized for around 30 experts dealing with the processes of social reconstruction of communities facing the consequences of war, destruction and various losses, as well as with changed living circumstances and system of values caused by the process of social transition. It is important to get acquainted with the psychological processes that affect the present and the future behavior of individual and groups, in order to better understand the obstacles to the process of social reconstruction and the resistance met while trying to establish a common level of social relations in communities that changed to a significant extent. It seems that, while efforts in physical reconstruction have been invested, the social reconstruction dimension has been neglected. Psychological processes and laws of interpersonal and intergroup relations are rarely taken into account, although they are the probable key of the further recovery of the communities.