United Against Torture Consortium (UATC) was launched on 26 June UN International Day in Support of Victims of Torture, and in a first of its kind, the IRCT joined with five of the world’s leading anti-torture organisations to strengthen and expand the anti-torture movement by pooling expertise in torture prevention, protection, rehabilitation and strategic litigation.
Funded by the European Union, UATC works in partnership with over 200 national civil society organisations and other partners in 100+ countries to build a global movement. The three-year, €8.5m project will provide grants to directly assist thousands of torture survivors, and strengthen local staff capacity to advocate with national actors responsible for torture prevention and rehabilitation.
Survivors’ experiences and, for those who wish, their direct participation, will be at the centre of the consortium’s torture prevention, rehabilitation and justice processes, both nationally and internationally. Thus through enabling the IRCT to make sub-grants to improve rehabilitation capacity and through provision of additional funding for survivor engagement projects, the UATC not only supports IRCT’s Strategy goal of strengthening the organisation through partnerships, but also two of the key pillars of our Strategy on Healing.
UATC: Three Years of Impact
From 2023 to 2026, the United Against Torture Consortium (UATC) strengthened the global movement against torture through coordinated action across prevention, rehabilitation, justice, accountability, and crisis response. Working in 123 countries with over 200 civil society partners, the consortium supported more than 12,000 survivors of torture and their families, advanced legal victories benefiting over 57,000 victims, and strengthened local actors through €2.2 million in financial and technical support. This report highlights how survivor-centred, collaborative action can drive meaningful change and advance a world free from torture and other ill-treatment.
UATC Impact Report 2023-26
UATC Impact Sheet 2023-26
UATC Grants For Improved Rehabilitation
A key component of IRCT’s contribution to the first phase of the UATC project is the provision of at least 16 sub-grants for sustaining and strengthening rehabilitation of 5,000 torture survivors using the Global Standards on Rehabilitation.
By the end of 2024, IRCT had supported 17 organisations (including two non-members) with grants around EUR 30,000 each, totalling some half a million Euros. Most projects were ongoing into 2025, but in first year reporting 3,320 survivors were recorded as receiving rehabilitation support directly as a result of the grants. The money was used by members to meet a range of rehabilitation costs, including paying for medicines or medical examinations, hiring additional psychologists, paying for physiotherapy sessions, and organising community awareness raising.
LEGEND golden care foundation (LGCF) received a grant for improved rehabilitation and launched a series of grassroots outreach projects
Impacts of the Grants for Improved Rehabilitation
With their rehabilitation grants, IRCT members have:
→ Conducted some 3,700 individual sessions of rehabilitation, including psychological support in Burundi, mental health camps in Nepal, psychiatric care in Chile, testimonial therapy in India, physiotherapy in Iraq, surgery in Zimbabwe, and legal support in Nigeria.
→ Reached a diversity of beneficiaries including politically persecuted Tutsis in Burundi, war widows in Nepal, marginalised Musahar of India’s so-called low caste, young protesters beaten by police in Kenya, survivors and opponents of Chad’s former dictatorship, Yazidi women raped and enslaved by ISIS, children in northern Zimbabwe, and adult male prisoners at the Swse Federal Prison, Dukan district of Sulaymaniyah, Kurdistan Region, Northern Iraq.
→ Support a range of related activities, including a Care4Caregivers+ workshop in Nepal, gifts of goats as livelihoods support for survivors in India, autopsies in Nairobi to determine gunshot wounds as cause of death, printing flyers to raise awareness of rehabilitation among IDPs in Duhok, northern Iraq, training on the Istanbul Protocol in Lebanon, and body mapping exercises for South Africans still traumatised by the former apartheid regime.
→ Trained and increase capacity among some 920 providers of rehabilitation or related services, the majority staff members at IRCT members, but also including community leaders in western Nepal, prison guards and teachers in Kurdistan, military veterans in South Africa, and police officers in Nigeria.
Gifts of goats as livelihoods support for survivors in India
Training of police officers in the Gambia
€30k
given on average per intervention
€500k
given in total for grants in 2024
3,320
survivors supported directly
90%
of treated survivors reporting improved health in Burundi
€66k
compensation for families of nine victims of custodial death or torture in India
20
torture survivors accessed government welfare schemes in India
90%
of 108 beneficiaries in Lebanon showed improvement in at least one symptom by end of treatment compared with baseline
Restoration
of community to survivors in South Africa: “I have found sisters, brothers… I thought I had lost.”
45%
average symptom improvement (anxiety, depression, PTSD) among 18 rehabilitated prisoners, Kurdistan
Safe-guarding
was improved in prison guards in northern Iraq after training. “I understand what mental health is and recognise someone who is at risk of suicide.”
87%
was the minimum score after 15 staff at Restart Centre, Lebanon, received training on the Istanbul protocol – up from a pre-training minimum score of 60%
2 mil
radio listeners educated in rehabilitation and psychosocial support for torture survivors, Nigeria
IRCT’s 2024 Improved Rehabilitation Team
Highlight: Legend Golden Care Foundation In Nigeria
Want to see what making an impact for torture survivors looks like? In need of convincing that grants to NGOs in developing countries can make a big difference? Then look no further than the series of eye-catching videos produced by Legend Golden Care Foundation (LGCF), a new member to IRCT in 2024 based in Abuja, Nigeria.
Within weeks of receiving their UATC rehabilitation grant, LGCF went to work across Nigeria, reaching torture survivors in slums and prisons, among the poor and the displaced, helping educate school children in human rights, taking to the airways to disseminate the torture prevention and rehabilitation message to millions of radio listeners, and advocating directly with police and policymakers to strengthen training and standards. T-shirts were printed, songs were sung, ministers collared, and pledges of support secured. Keep an eye on IRCT social media as we follow LGCF continuing to make a big impact with every penny spent!
LGCF is a Non-Governmental Organisation primarily concerned with the welfare of children, women, and inmates of correctional facilities. Our mandate comprises offering pro bono legal services to inmates, increasing access to quality education for disadvantaged children, and supporting victims of sexual abuse and exploitation.
Legend Golden Care Foundation in action, advocating against torture and creating awareness.
“Once people have the awareness they need, they are half way to finding the solutions to their problems.”
Achineku, Correctional Officer, Kabusa, Nigeria
“The school authorities were impressed with our services as these are challenges being faced by the children in the camps.”
Sandra Ezeh, Clinical Psychologist, LGCF, Nigeria
“The programme we are implementing is on the stigmatisation of torture
survivors.”
Surveyor, LGCF, Kabusa, Abuja, Nigeria
UATC In Action
UATC Impacts in 2024
Support to Survivors
Over 12,000 torture survivors received assistance, and nearly 50,000 were awarded reparations totalling €52.4 million with Consortium support.
Strengthening Civil Society
110 anti-torture CSOs received funding, and 131 enganged directly with the UN Committee Against Torture.
Legal and Policy
Wins
Legal victories were achieved in 18 countries; 38 initiatives advanced National Preventive Mechanisms.
Rapid Crisis Response
Timely interventions were launched in response to urgent torture situations in Bangladesh, Palestine, and DR Congo.
Global Advocacy
Impact
Over 500,000 people were reached through campaigns and survivor testimonies, including regional youth-led initiatives.
Policy Advocacy
Advocated for the inclusion of the absolute prohibition of torture in the Human Rights Council’s resolution on peaceful protest.
UN Collaboration
Collaborated with the UN Special Rapporteurs on torture and protest-related abuses.
Giving Voice to Survivors
In 2024, survivor testimonies marking 40 years of the Convention Against Torture were seen by over three million YouTube users.
In Focus: Bangladesh Crisis Response
Many crises situations of torture and other ill treatment are chronic, requiring a sustained response. Others are acute, or emerging. Rarely have international anti-torture organisations had the capacity to respond effectively to the latter. To address that need, the UATC adopted a Crisis Response procedure, tested out for the first time as Bangladesh approached its general election in January 2024, and the rise in torture went hand in hand with attacks on the rule of law.
IRCT led on drafting a series of statements (in English and Bengali) aimed at the government in Dhaka and its international partners, as well as providing emergency grants and training on torture documentation for our new member Human Rights Development Centre (HRDC). Omega undertook research into the type and origin of equipment used by Bangladeshi security forces to torture and ill treat protesters, while OMCT led an advocacy campaign with UN and EU officials to press for no return to ‘business as usual’ following an election marred by torture, specifically addressing the EU’s important trade relationship with Dhaka.
Photo credit: SK Hasan Ali, Shutterstock
In Focus: Protect the Protest
With the continued rise of authoritarianism and subsequent pro-democracy protests, countering torture by police during protest remains a key component of IRCT’s work.
To that end, our Protest Toolkit was updated to simplify parts of the Reporting Form and to include a new section documenting police or military equipment used against protesters, authored by our UATC partners Omega Research Foundation, who are global experts on the use and trade in such equipment.
Torture and ill-treatment by law enforcement during protests – often to punish, intimidate, or discriminate – remain a pervasive and growing problem. Yet, such brutality is rarely recognised by officials or the public as violations of the right to be free from torture and other cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment. This lack of recognition undermines accountability, prevents adoption of safeguards, and allows impunity.
UATC’s policy paper Protesting Without Fear: A Policy Framework to End Torture and Ill-Treatment in Protests offers legally grounded, practical recommendations for States, applying the international anti-torture framework as a powerful but underused tool for prevention, protection, and redress.
UATC Policy framework to end torture and ill-treatment in Protests
In Focus: Gaza Crisis Response
Over the past year, the absolute prohibition of torture – a cornerstone of international human rights -has faced alarming erosion. Torture remains banned under all circumstances, yet recent developments reveal widespread violations, particularly against Palestinians. Following the 7 October 2023 Hamas attack, Israel’s response has included systematic torture, ill-treatment, and collective punishment, alongside mass displacement and destruction in Gaza. While crimes by Hamas, including killings and hostage-taking, are unequivocally condemned, they cannot justify these abuses.
Reports from organisations such as B’TSELEM, TRC, and the UN document severe torture in Israeli detention, including beatings, sexual abuse, solitary confinement, and denial of medical care. Arbitrary detention has surged, with thousands held without trial under Israel’s Unlawful Combatants Law, amounting to enforced disappearances. Children, healthcare workers, and civilians are among the victims, while access for monitors and lawyers remains blocked.
As this crisis undermines global human rights protections and demands urgent action, the United Against Torture Consortium in a statement called on the international community to enforce ICJ measures, support ICC investigations, ensure unrestricted monitoring, restore basic safeguards, and guarantee reparation for victims.
Grants for an Emergency Helpline and Psychological First Aid
Psychological First Aid
In 2025, GCMHP received a grant from the UATC to provide PFA and conduct assessments for 400 victims of torture in the Gaza Strip, with a focus on 95% male beneficiaries. These efforts aimed to stabilise and support individuals in shelters, field hospitals, and displacement areas during the emergency. Psychological First Aid (PFA) “is a very basic intervention but it’s a very important one,” says Dr Yasser Abu Jamei, Director General of the Gaza Community Mental Health Programme (GCMHP).
During Israel’s war on Gaza, staff at the Gaza Community Mental Health Programme (GCMHP) were cut off from supporting thousands of seriously traumatised Palestinians. In the Israeli-occupied West Bank, Treatment and Rehabilitation Center for Victims of Torture (TRC) received a grant from UATC to maintain a hotline for those GCMHP could no longer treat. The grant was also used to support documentation of torture and other ill-treatment of detainees released from Israeli custody, and to offer psychological services to families in the West Bank affected by Israeli settler violence or the torture of their family members.
In Focus: Voices for Human Dignity
Voices for Human Dignity is a multimedia initiative launched by the United Against Torture Consortium to mark the 40th anniversary of the Convention Against Torture. It amplifies the voices of survivors, experts, and human rights defenders, showcasing resilience and global efforts to prevent torture and promote justice.
Adopted in 1984, the Convention represents humanity’s commitment to eradicate torture and uphold dignity. While progress has been made in awareness, prevention, and accountability, challenges such as impunity and evolving forms of torture persist. This initiative reminds us that ending torture requires united action from governments, civil society, and individuals worldwide.
Through personal testimonies, these films connect survivors’ experiences to the Convention’s articles, underscoring their critical role in protecting human rights.
The Convention Against Torture (UNCAT) is a UN treaty requiring signatory States to prevent torture and other cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment. It obliges countries to criminalise torture in national law, implement preventive measures, provide rehabilitation, redress and justice to survivors, and prohibit transferring individuals to States where they risk torture. Compliance with UNCAT is overseen by the Committee against Torture, an independent body of experts.
“If you don’t want to confess, we’ll make you confess.”
Aram Arystamyan
Torture Survivor
Russia
“They were denigrating me to the condition of a dog.”
Manuel Rojas Boyan
Torture Survivor
Bolivia
“He shouted ‘You want to topple the regime?’ Then he beat me.”
Ahmed
Torture Survivor
Syria
“The soldiers had beaten my nephew to death.”
Arach Santa Mulare
Torture Survivor
Uganda
“You feel dehumanised, the way they treat you.”
Suha Jabara
Torture Survivor
Palestine
“Physical evidence, photographs will never lie.”
Dr Benito Molino
Forensic Expert
Philippines
“I was more scared when I got released.”
Resty Mark Prado
Torture Survivor
Philippines
“I realised I am still useful in society.”
Betty Amony,
Torture Survivor,
Uganda
“They were there for me, the psycho-logists.”
Shyhrete Tahiri-Sylejmani
Torture Survivor
Kosovo
“I became desperate from hearing my father screaming.”
Osvaldo Rodriguez
Torture Survivor
Mexico
UATC Partners
In its first six months, UATC coordinated an emergency response to the rise in torture in Bangladesh, released joint statements, and supported members through the ongoing crisis in Israel and Palestine, and collaborated directly with the Committee Against Torture and UN Special Rapporteur on Torture, to advance key UATC priorities around policing and dissent and an international treaty to ban trade in inherently abusive police equipment, or ‘torture tools’.
Although collaborating with large organisations with multi-layered work processes certainly presented some challenges for the small but specialised team at IRCT, the benefits of building a movement that is more than the sum of its parts are both clear and necessary in a world where torture persists in at least 140 States.
Human Rights at 75: UATC’s Pledge for a Torture-Free World
Collaboration Is Key
⇒ Collaboration is key. Eradicating torture and ill-treatment is an immense challenge, requiring the combined efforts of all stakeholders. Plurality must be a source of strength, not competition.
⇒ When we work together against torture and other ill-treatment, we are more than the sum of our parts.
⇒ With a united front we can defeat torture and other ill-treatment. Involving survivors in policy and decision-making and recognising their role as active participants is crucial. By engaging them in shaping agendas and advocating for their rights, we strengthen our fight against torture and uphold justice and dignity.
⇒ Beyond the financial aspects of support, UATC favours accompaniment with joint activities, mentoring, research partnerships, and joint engagement and exchanges.
From: OHCHR-UATC Comms Collaboration Jun-Dec 2024
The Seven Keys to success
