2024 in Focus: Promoting Survivor Participation and Empowerment
By Camila Restrepo, Communities Officer
At REDRESS, we have the privilege of witnessing the extraordinary resilience and determination of survivors of torture in our daily work. Learning from survivors has been instrumental in allowing REDRESS to grow from theory to practice in fostering survivor participation and empowerment.
As human rights practitioners, it is crucial that we do not subconsciously replicate dynamics of powerlessness in our interactions with survivors. Instead, we must seek to build trust by centring their needs and priorities. A survivor-centred approach asks us to not see survivors simply as victims, but as human beings with agency, skills, expertise, and resilience from which we can learn. Centring survivors’ voices is crucial to everything we do at REDRESS, from our work advocating for reparations for victims of conflict-related sexual violence to fighting for justice for LGBTQ+ torture survivors in Africa. It is one of our three core values.
REDRESS continues to develop and promote a survivor-centred approach to our work. Central to this effort is our Survivor Advisory Group, composed of survivors of torture who guide and inform our advocacy in the United Kingdom. The group’s main priorities are protecting the absolute prohibition of torture and putting survivors’ voices at the centre of legislative and policy proposals.
The group launched the Take Torture Seriously campaign ahead of the UK 2024 General Election, which featured video testimonies from members and urged both political candidates and voters to consider survivors’ needs and voices. The Survivors Advisory Group also helped REDRESS develop recommendations to the incoming government.
In addition, REDRESS has developed a range of resources to help other practitioners adopt a survivor-centred approach in their work, including a new practice note, A Survivor-Centred Approach to Seeking Reparation for Torture. This practice note offers guidance on how to ensure survivors’ participation, reduce their risk of further harm and re-traumatisation, and reinforce their agency in human rights litigation and reparation processes.