The Campaign to Stop Torture in Health Care worked worldwide to hold governments accountable and put an end to human rights violations and abuses in health care settings. The campiagn included these short films from Namibia, Ukraine and Cambodia that I shot and co-directed that illustrated some of the injustices in the system.
Hilma holds her youngest son outside her home in Namibia.
Hilma discovered that she was sterilized only after the fact. The procedure was performed without her informed consent during a caesarean operation. Although she gave birth to two healthy boys, her doctor decided she should not be allowed to have more children because she is living with HIV. Thousands of women throughout Southern Africa have had their right to have a child taken away from them. Forced and coerced sterilization are a grave violation of human rights and medical ethics and can be described as acts of torture and cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment. Although sterilization may be carried out by individual health providers, it is ultimately the responsibility of governments to prevent such abuses from taking place.
Vlad awaits his next pain injusticon. He is confined to his bed at home in Ukraine.
Vlad is suffering from incurable brain cancer. Despite his chronic pain, doctors in Ukraine are only able to prescribe minimal amounts of morphine due to bureaucratic restrictions. He is allowed only 50 mg of pain medicine per day. In another country, doctors would typically prescribe more than 2,000 mg for a patient like Vlad. Millions of people are left to suffer in pain without access to proper medicines. The severity of the pain experienced by patients can be as great or greater than that of traditional torture techniques, and it can last longer.
Venta is still recovering from his time in the Cambodian drug rehabilitation center.
Venta needed treatment for his drug problem. Instead, he was tortured. In all corners of the world, people who use drugs are forcibly detained in “rehabilitation” centers where they may be subjected to beatings, forced labor, medical experimentation, denial of basic health care (including evidence-based drug treatment), and other severe human rights violations. Like Venta, thousands of people throughout Southeast Asia are locked away in so-called drug rehabilitation centers where they are regularly beaten, abused, and denied access to medical care.
As a result of the campaign, the UN Special Rapporteur on Torture formally recognized that severe abuses within health care—including forced sterilization, denial of pain relief, involuntary confinement, and forced treatment—constitute torture or cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment.