ODIHR
T O O L
UNCAT Implementation Tool 5/2018
PROVIDING REHABILITATION TO
VICTIMS OF TORTURE AND OTHER
ILL-TREATMENT
All victims of torture have an explicit right to rehabilitation under the United Nations Convention against
Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (UNCAT, Article 14). Rehabilitation
should aim to restore, as far as possible, torture victims’ independence, physical, mental, social and vocational
ability, as well as their full inclusion and participation in society.1 States have a corresponding duty to provide
for as full a rehabilitation as possible, either through the direct provision of rehabilitation services or through
funding private medical, legal and other services, including those administered by non-governmental
organizations (NGOs).2
This tool provides an overview of how states have implemented the right to rehabilitation through a collection of
practices, supplemented with experiences from non-state rehabilitation providers. The practices included in this
tool are intended to inspire states to learn from each other and thereby improve implementation at the national
level, within the OSCE region and beyond.3 Promising practice examples from the OSCE region and from other
parts of the world have been collected to illustrate possible approaches and steps on the way to ensuring torture
victims’ right to the fullest possible level of rehabilitation. Their inclusion in the tool does not imply any form of
validation of their full compliance with international standards, regional or global relevance and applicability, or
superiority to alternative practices applied by other states.
UN Committee against Torture’s General Comment No. 3 (2012): Implementation of article 14 by States parties, p.11.
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2
Ibid, p.15.
All OSCE participating States have ratified the United Nations Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or
Degrading Treatment or Punishment. These are: Albania, Andorra, Armenia, Austria, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Belgium, Bosnia
and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Canada, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Georgia, Germany,
Greece, Holy See, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Latvia, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Luxembourg,
Malta, Moldova, Monaco, Mongolia, Montenegro, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Russian Federation,
San Marino, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Tajikistan, the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia,
Turkey, Turkmenistan, Ukraine, United Kingdom, United States, and Uzbekistan.
3
The CTI ‘UNCAT Implementation Tools’ are a series of practical tools designed to share good practices among States on the
implementation of the UN Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (UNCAT).
They offer thematic guidance and ideas for State practitioners and policymakers as they develop or revise context-specific strategies,
mechanisms and procedures to prevent torture and other forms of ill-treatment or punishment, and provide remedies for victims.
This Tool – Providing Rehabilitation to Victims of Torture and Other Ill-treatment – has been jointly developed by the OSCE Office for
Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR) and the Convention against Torture Initiative (CTI).
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