HUMAN rights groups that have been campaigning against torture must immensely be relieved by Vice-President Guy Scott’s call on stakeholders to find ways of how best to stop the practice.
It is equally pleasing to note that the Zambian Government is ready to work with organisations involved in the fight against torture to ensure that victims are supported.
Torture is one form of ill-treatment or punishment meted out on people, and this occurs in many parts of the world, although it is widely practiced in conflict areas.
It is widely condemned not only by human rights bodies but also all organisations, as well as governments, even those in countries where the vice is openly committed.
In addition, there has been a rallying call to do something humanely possible for victims of torture, including rehabilitating them into society. Hence June 26 remains the UN-declared international day in support of victims of torture.
The day, which this year fell on Thursday, is a particularly pertinent one for torture victims world-wide who need help psychologically, financially as well as materially.
Nearly all countries have had their own share of perpetrating torture in one form or another. At one time in Zambia, for instance, suspects suffered torture at the hands of police officers when the infamous ‘kampelwa’ was reportedly practiced in many police cells.
This was a form of torture by which suspects were suspended on stationery objects such as benches and left to hang for many minutes as police officers tried to extract possible leads or confessions from them (suspects).
And from war-torn areas world-over come various reports of torture, some of which have been described as too graphic to detail and range from suspects being kept in darkness and in solitary confinement to being beaten while blindfolded.
Other suspects are deprived of food and toilet facilities and are not allowed to be visited, not even by their relatives. Children and women are not spared either, with the latter being raped as another weapon of war/torture.
In the end, survivors of torture do not remain the same as they emerge from these experience deformed either physically or mentally or both, and these people’s lives badly need rebuilding.
This is where Dr Scott’s assurance that the Zambian Government is ready to work with stakeholders to support torture victims sounds highly encouraging.
Besides this, there is need for all stakeholders to put their heads together and mount a relentless campaign for the eradication of this widely condemned heinous practice.OPINION