Encourages health practitioners to be more sensitive to children who are torture survivors and to act more quickly to help them. Misconceptions abound that torture is rare, only adults are tortured, and those who are tortured did something wrong to incur the torture. Torture is actually practiced in 150 countries, and 500,000 survivors live in the United States. Children frequently witness torture of family members, or are tortured themselves. In all cases, torture frequently involves beatings and rape, and children suffer the guilt and humiliation common to rape victims of all ages. Cultural and religious beliefs that condemn rape victims serve to reinforce these negative feelings. Any health provider who is working with a child from a country in crisis should consider that the child may have witnessed or undergone torture. The practitioner should give the child a safe place for private discussions and ask him open-ended questions that demonstrate compassion, responsiveness, and knowledge about what they suffered. Providers should commit themselves and their teams to become better educated about torture and ways to help survivor children.
