Our Clients
Each year, the Kirkuk Center treats about 2000 torture survivors and victims of violence. More than one third of those who seek help are female adults while 30% are children and adolescents. Most of the clients are of Kurdish origin, followed by Arabs, Turkmens, and Assyrians.
Human Rights Abuses
The most frequent human rights violations experienced by our clients are
- severe physical torture
- prolonged psychological torture
- long-term detention under extremely degrading conditions
- rape and other forms of sexual abuse and
- domestic violence.
In addition, we treat clients who have suffered physical and psychological trauma due to recent military conflict and terrorist attacks.
Needs
Torture survivors and victims of similar human rights abuses suffer from complex disorders that affect them on a physical, psychological and social level. Due to their experiences most of our clients suffer from different forms of posttraumatic stress such as sleeping disorders, depression and high levels of aggression.
The long-term consequences of extreme violence by human hand are not limited to individuals. They destroy family structures, affect entire communities, impinge on the following generations, and can lead to destructive cycles of violence in post-repressive societies.
Victims need a multidisciplinary spectrum of services comprising medical diagnostics and torture anamnesis; medical, psychosomatic and physiotherapeutic treatment; social counseling and legal advice; as well as culturally sensitive, age-appropriate and gender-specific psychotherapy.
