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International Human Rights Come Home to California: Legislators Briefed on Torture Survivors in State and Their Needs
Carlos Mauricio, Center for Justice & Accountability (CJA) client and torture survivor, with CJA Executive Director Pamela Merchant at CJA's May 2008 Annual Dinner in San Francisco
By Pamela Merchant
Executive Director
Center for Justice and Accountability
Last week, a unique group of California-based NGOs convened in Sacramento to educate California lawmakers on the importance of state-sponsored support and advocacy for California’s population of torture survivors. Representatives from the California Consortium of Torture Treatment Centers, which shares information and best practices regarding the treatment of torture survivors living in California, held a press conference to promote recognition of the long-term psychological and physical effects of torture and the role treatment centers in California play in the recovery process. The June 26th conference marked the 21st anniversary of the 1987 Geneva Convention Against Torture and the 11th United Nations International Day in Support of Victims of Torture.
Over 2.5 million refugees have resettled in the United States since 1975. Of this number, over 662,000 refugees have resettled in California, many of whom fled their home countries in response to violent human rights abuses. California, therefore, has a vast number of torture survivors, each of whom must overcome their past, while facing the inherent struggles of providing for their families and assimilating into their communities.
The California Consortium of Torture Treatment Centers is devoted to promoting treatment services for torture survivors and is composed of groups that aid in this recovery process. One such group, the Center for Justice & Accountability (CJA), has pioneered a survivor-centered approach to the quest for justice for gross human rights abuses that combines medical and psycho-social services with legal representation to both empower and heal torture survivors and their communities.
CJA was founded in 1998 in response to the reality that many perpetrators of international human rights abuses had also sought refuge in the U.S. CJA’s first client was a Bosnian torture and detention camp survivor who experienced additional trauma after he learned that his torturer was living freely in the same community in the U.S. The basis of CJA’s work is the recognition that the need for justice is an integral component of a torture victim's recovery process and that healing cannot take place when the perpetrator continues to live with impunity.
In 1999, CJA filed a case on behalf of Carlos Mauricio, a refugee living in the Bay Area who had fled El Salvador in 1983. Mauricio had been a professor at the University of El Salvador when he was kidnapped and tortured for nearly two weeks at the National Police Headquarters. CJA represented Mauricio and two other plaintiffs in the case Romagoza v. Arce brought against two Salvadoran generals responsible for the plaintiffs’ torture. The Generals were both living comfortably in retirement in the United States. In 2002, a jury found the Generals liable for torture and ordered them to pay $54.6 million to the plaintiffs in the case. In July 2006, with the judgment final, Defendant Vides Casanova was forced to relinquish over $300,000 of his own funds. This collection represents one of the first human rights cases in U.S. history in which survivors have recovered money from those found responsible for abuses. Almost all of the proceeds have been donated to charity by our heroic clients.
The story of Carlos Mauricio and his experience with CJA highlights the complex needs of many of California’s refugee population. Survivors need and deserve access to specialized mental health treatment, medical treatment and the benefits our legal system. As the state with arguably the largest number of refugees, California has a responsibility to provide access to and promote the success of these vital services.
The Center for Justice & Accountability (CJA) is an international human rights organization dedicated to deterring torture and other severe human rights abuses around the world and advancing the rights of survivors to seek truth, justice and redress.
The California Consortium of Torture Treatment Centers includes Survivors of Torture, International in San Diego; the Center for Justice and Accountability in San Francisco; the Center for Survivors of Torture at Asian Americans for Community Involvement in San Jose; the Institute for Redress and Recovery in Santa Clara; Legal Aid Foundation of Los Angeles; Program for Torture Victims in Los Angeles; and Survivors International in San Francisco.
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