Uganda

Credit: Cedric Crucke, Shutterstock / Soldier walks by villagers in soroti, Uganda

ACTV advocates against torture and is a one-stop centre that offers holistic rehabilitation services to Survivors of torture and violence.

Founded in 1993 by a Ugandan doctor and torture survivor, the African Centre for Treatment and Rehabilitation of Torture Victims (ACTV) is based in Kampala. With a staff of 40, and regional offices in Gulu and Karamoja in Northern Uganda, and Kasese in the West, ACTV has provided rehabilitation to over 20,000 torture survivors.

It also provides advocacy against torture, medical treatment, physiotherapy, legal redress, mental health, social support services and anchors its service provision on evidence that is generated through research and documentation.

It also provides life-saving assistance to some of the 1.7 million refugees hosted by Uganda, most fleeing conflicts in neighbouring DR Congo and South Sudan.

Watch how actv carries out its important work in rehabilitation, improved livelihoods and justice for torture survivors

The value of high quality evidence for accountability was underlined in a successful civil compensation claim against the police under the Prevention and Prohibition of Torture Act 2012.

Lutaaya Muhammad, a motorbike taxi rider, was arrested by Uganda Police at Katwe in the capital Kampala in November 2018. On 20 August 2024, the High Court awarded him fifty million Uganda shilling (EUR13,000) after accepting “evidence so consistent” that he had been held without charge and tortured.

The Court relied on the evidence of an Istanbul Protocol medico-legal produced by Independent Forensic Expert Group (IFEG), in coordination with IRCT member the African Centre for the Treatment of Torture Victims (ACTV) which detailed the blunt trauma injuries to Muhammad’s spine that had left him incapacitated and unable to work.

Six police officers and the Attorney General were found to have violated Muhammad’s Article 44 rights under Uganda’s 1995 Constitution, read together with the 2012 Act. Muhammad’s criminal case against the police is ongoing, as is ACTV’s work, supported by IRCT, to establish a network of local forensic experts to support more such cases in the future.

In Uganda, ACTV, IFEG, and IRCT cooperated to provide high-quality medico-legal evidence that secured compensation for a torture survivor and strengthened anti-torture accountability.

During 2023, the IRCT and our local partner ACTV Uganda took important steps toward persuading the Ugandan Government to implement the recommendations issued to it by the UN Committee against Torture in December 2022. It was only the second time Uganda had reported to the Committee, and was 12 years late in doing so. ACTV had made 20 recommendations to the Committee in its alternative report, and 19 of them were adopted by the committee.

Based on that background and in line with ACTV’s mandate to advocate for the prevention of torture, ACTV implemented an eight-month project to popularize the UNCAT recommendations and also advocate for their implementation by the State. Hundreds of members of the Uganda People’s Defence Forces (UPDF), the Uganda Police Force (UPF), and Uganda Prisons Service (UPS) were trained by ACTV staff on application of Uganda’s Prevention and Prohibition of Torture Act, 2012, the UNCAT recommendations and investigating torture using the Istanbul Protocol.

ACTV trained hundreds of members of Uganda’s army, police, and prison service on the country’s Prevention and Prohibition of Torture Act, 2012 and investigating torture using the Istanbul Protocol.

To improve the collection of evidence of torture for prosecution, ACTV and the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions and the Criminal Investigations Department of Police (CID) co-developed a checklist on investigation and documentation of torture cases.

The Ministry of Health also worked with ACTV to develop an action plan which will be followed in the development of a National Rehabilitation Policy for survivors of torture in the country. In addition, the Ministry drafted two key indicators about torture that would be included in the National Health Information Management system to track information about survivors of torture that receive treatment in Government hospitals.

Finally, for the first time, 83 officers of the Police Criminal Investigations Directorate were trained on their role in implementing the Uganda Prevention and Protection against Torture Act and its regulations.

“The Guidelines on Use of Force in the UPDF do not accommodate torture and are not a justification for officers to engage in acts of torture and ill treatment.”

— HUMAN RIGHTS OFFICER, Uganda People’s Defence Forces.

“I come from a very painful past,” says Arach Santa Mulare, a survivor of Uganda’s brutal civil war who lives in a village in the remote north-west, close to Uganda’s borders with South Sudan and DR Congo.

Stabbed and then left for dead by the rebel Lord’s Resistance Army Mulare later witnessed the murder of her family by Ugandan government troops, and then endured domestic violence.

“Any time I tried to tell my story I would find myself breaking down as I remembered the past,” says Mulare. “Now I am okay because of the counselling ACTV offered me.”

Amony Betty is one of hundreds of women supported by IRCT member in Uganda the African Centre for Treatment and Rehabilitation of Torture Victims (ACTV).

“Life was not easy. I did not have food for my children,” says Betty, who was abducted as a teenager by the rebel Lord’s Resistance Army, who beat and starved her, before she escaped. “I had constant pain and I felt useless. I felt I should just kill myself.”

After visiting ACTV’s clinic in Gulu, Northern Uganda, Betty was given medical assistance, joined with a group of fellow survivors, and offered start-up capital in the form of children’s clothes to sell.

IRCT member the African Centre for Treatment and Rehabilitation of Torture Survivors (ACTV) supports rural communities left severely traumatised by Uganda’s civil war. As part of torture rehabilitation, survivors are encouraged to work together in a group, and some have received cattle, crops or a milling machine in order to secure basic food needs for their families, and to generate some income.

“I come from a very painful past,” said Arach Santa Mulare, a survivor of Uganda’s brutal civil war who lives in a village in the remote north-west, close to Uganda’s borders with South Sudan and DR Congo. Stabbed and then left for dead by the rebel Lord’s Resistance Army, Mulare later witnessed the murder of her family by Ugandan government troops, and then endured domestic violence. “Any time I tried to tell my story I would find myself breaking down as I remembered the past,” says Mulare. “Now I am okay because of the counselling ACTV offered me.”

ACTV runs tailoring workshops and has provided 17 survivors with their own sewing machines to become self-reliant

“This milling machine has changed my life. Now I know my children will eat and it has lifted my low self-esteem. I can play with my children. I even laugh.”

— ARACH SANTA MULARE, Torture survivor, Uganda

During the first phase of its livelihoods project ACTV, which is a member of IRCT’s Livelihoods Steering Committee, supported 44 torture survivors to gain new income generating skills. At its headquarters in Kampala ACTV runs tailoring workshops and has provided 17 survivors with their own sewing machines to become self-reliant. Others have received business start-up support for poultry, soft drinks, and grocery businesses. From its office in Gulu, in the north, ACTV runs projects with rural groups of women displaced by the civil war. In the current phase of the project, ACTV has supported 60 survivors, a majority women, who were provided with oxen, ploughs and improved seeds to help them grow more food for their families, and to sell.

With a grant from IRCT, ACTV provided over 200 women with income generating projects

The survivors, many of whom were living isolated and destitute, were trained in working in Village Savings and Loan Associations (VSLA), one of which, so far, has received its own milling machine.In northern Uganda, most torture survivors treated by ACTV are women, many of whom were also widowed by the Lord’s Resistance Army and left without economic resources and financial stability.

With a grant from IRCT, ACTV provided over 200 women with income generating projects. One group received maize seeds, training on farming and a milling machine to make flour out of the maize they grew. Another received ground nut seeds and oxen to plough their land. The results were extraordinary. ACTV observed a dramatic improvement in the socio-economic situation of these women, which in turn contributed to their individual and collective healing and helped their villages to thrive.

ACTV runs tailoring workshops as Livelihood projects

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