INTRODUCTION
We know that the eradication of torture is among the most fundamental duties of humanity. However, the solution to the medical problems due to torture which we could not yet be able to eradicate in spite of all efforts remains a duty that cannot be put off. The Human Rights Foundation of Turkey (HRFT) has been trying to contribute to solving the medical problems of torture survivors since 1990. In addition, providing solutions to the medical problems of relatives, related to traumatic periods, is also within the scope of the HRFT, since our experiences and scientific studies carried out within the field have shown that torture may also affect relatives of torture survivors.
The HRFT carried on its work in 1995, developing a humane-medical atmosphere that organizes multi-disciplinary studies of health care workers from various branches and professional groups, who perceive to be involved in the treatment of torture survivors as a requirement of being human and as an ethical responsibility of health workers. While trying to develop its own institutionalization, the HRFT paid efforts to contribute to the medical accumulation to the extent of its own working field.
Torture, defined as “one’s act to deliberately inflict physical or psychological pain on another for specific purposes”, is among the common problems of humanity. Torture in Turkey is not limited to detention places and prisons. Atrocities committed during village and house raids, while searching houses and dispersing protesters, fire opened by security officers at specific targets or at random, and torture inflicted outside detention places by people reportedly acting in the name of some secret organizations are some of the other aspects of the issue.
The treatment and rehabilitation services of the HRFT are provided by means of its representative offices in Ankara, İstanbul, İzmir and Adana. In these centers, teams formed of general practitioners, psychiatrists, psychologists, social workers and medical secretaries organize the treatment and rehabilitation services, together with specialists from all branches of the medical profession. The first examinations of applicants are carried out at the centers, and a treatment and rehabilitation plan is scheduled. Medical and laboratory examinations and treatment are provided by specialists and institutions that have connections with the HRFT. All the expenses are covered by the HRFT. The treatment processes are coordinated and the results are assessed by the teams in the centers. The results from our studies and the assessments are documented in the form of annual reports and publicized.
Establishing a treatment center in Diyarbakir, a province in the Emergency State Region that embraces a developed medical atmosphere and that is easy to access from anywhere in the Region, has been considered. However, since such a center could not be opened yet and since the number of applications from the provinces where the HRFT does not operate a center was very low, social support has been provided to the torture survivors, living in this region where the HRFT does not have a center, to access our centers and accomplish their treatment, by means of the “5 Cities Project” implemented in Mersin, Gaziantep, Malatya, Diyarbakir, and Van. The accommodation expenses of the survivors within this context in the province where their treatment is underway are covered by the HRFT. The project is mainly implemented in Ankara i.e., the applicants within the framework of this project are generally referred to Ankara. However, when required, applicants are admitted to the other centers, too.
The HRFT which provided health services to 1431 people within the four years until 1995, rendered services to 713 people in 1995. The increase in the number of applicants is due to the gradually growing recognition and the opening of a center in Adana, which is in close proximity to the Emergency State Region and inhabited by numerous migrants from the region.