| Acts
of non-political torture: Human rights violations
Jane, Dawn, Jessie, Kate, Carrie,
Phoenix, Hope, and Sara are persons whose life experiences contributed
to defining a collective wisdom about the extensive atrocities which
can exist within intimate relationships be these parent-child, parent-adult
child, or spousal relationships. Listening to the women describe their
life-threatening ordeals revealed the existence of spousal violence
and in-home terrorism, of spousal captivity, sexualized enslavement,
and torture, and of ritual abuse [-torture].
From the women who identified them-Selves
as experiencing ritual abuse we heard that the word ritual abuse did
not sufficiently nor respectfully define the cruel and inhuman ordeals
they endured; they were of the opinion they had endured more than
abuse. When asked if they felt they had been tortured they agreed
they had been tortured. Based on their and our collective wisdom we
coined and use the term ritual abuse-torture (RAT).
It is our opinion in reviewing the
literature on acts of political torture that the ordeals inflicted
on Dawn, Kate, Carrie, Phoenix, Hope, and Sara constituted acts of
physical torture, sexualized torture, and mind-spirit torture comparable
to the commonly used acts of torture used by state sanctioned female
and male torturers. Dawn survived spousal torture, the remaining women
survived infant, toddler, child, youth, and/or “captive” adult RAT.
For this reason we have defined spousal torture and RAT as acts of
non-political torture—a term denoting the reality that acts of torture
happen in our country, in our communities, in our institutions, in
our homes, to children and adults alike. Acts of non-political torture
encapsulate all forms of abuse but abuse does not encapsulate acts
of torture. This is why the women involved in our kitchen table research
project knew their ordeals were more than abuse. They had experienced
ordeals of non-political torture and human rights violations.
A few publications and articles which
discuss the reality that acts of torture are not limited to the politically
or state sanctioned torturer but are acts used by the male and female
non-political torturers who live within our midst can be found in
the following:
1. Amnesty International. (2000). Hidden scandal, secret shame: Torture
and ill- treatment of children (pp. 7-14). London, UK: Amnesty International
Publications.
2. Amnesty International. (2001). Broken bodies, shattered minds—Torture
and ill-treatment of women. London, UK: Amnesty International Publications.
3. Elliott, M. (1993). Female Sexual Abuse of Children (pp. 118-124).
New York: The Guilford Press.
4. Starman, H. (2000). Whose torture is it anyway? The International
Journal of Human Rights, 4(1), 94-102.
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