LOS ANGELES — Once a year, an event called Big Sunday Weekend mobilizes volunteers to help at different organizations and schools. One of the places volunteers visited this year is the Program for Torture Victims, a torture treatment center in Los Angeles.

The center helps survivors heal and also provides testimony to help them gain asylum in the United States. From 2010 to 2012, the Program for Torture Victims worked with close to 700 survivors from more than 65 countries.

For 26 years Rossana Perez has spent her free time running in a park near downtown Los Angeles.

“It really clears my thoughts and helps me to release stress,” Perez said.

Much of that stress comes from memories of prison and torture.

“It’s very painful to, you know, talk about things…,” Perez said.

Overcome with emotion, Perez needed a moment to collect herself before continuing.

“A life can be so easily fragmented and one can feel ashamed of…,” she said.

Perez came from El Salvador. In the 1980s, during the country’s civil war, she was a university student and participated in demonstrations for social reform. She says she was labeled as a communist and was arrested and tortured.

“They push you. They beat you up. They touch you. They say stuff to you. They put things on your body. One day, I remember I was naked. I was with my hands tied [behind my] back, and they put this big metal thing on my head. I was feeling that my body was breaking,” Perez said.

Some torture survivors find their way to Los Angeles, home of the Program for Torture Victims, a center that provides outpatient treatment to those who have been tortured.

Trip Oldfield is the center’s executive director. He says this is the first treatment center of its kind in the United States.

He says many American non-profits, including his, lost funding during the economic downturn. Recent government spending cuts haven’t helped.

“We used to get about 80 percent of our funding from the government sources, in 2000 for instance. And now it’s down to about 50 percent,” Oldfield said.

The Program for Torture Victims depends on volunteers who donate their money and time. At this year’s Big Sunday Weekend, volunteers gave the office a new coat of paint, helped rearrange a room, and put up shelves to create a food and clothing bank.

“Most of our clients flee with nothing. So some clients come in, and they have nothing. They have the clothes on their backs. We want to give them basics,” Oldfield said.

David Levinson is Big Sunday Weekend’s founder.

”We introduce many people to organizations they might not have heard about before,” Levinson said.

The program links survivors of torture to lawyers, psychiatrists and experts on the asylum process.

Oldfield says people who are tortured are never the same, but  they can heal and lead happy, productive lives.  Rossana Perez is working and pursuing a masters degree. She also wants to go for a PhD and help her community and others in need.

Time for universal rejection of torture!

Today marks the 25^th anniversary of the UN Committee against Torture, the guardian of one of the most widely accepted international human rights conventions. In a campaign for universal ratification of the Convention against Torture, several leading human rights organisations now call on the remaining 42 countries to join the treaty and recognize the full competence of the Committee against Torture.

Of the countries that have not yet ratified the UN Convention against Torture, almost all have made voluntary pledges to consider ratification, especially in the context of the regular Universal Periodic Review by the Geneva-based UN Human Rights Council.

PROGRAM FOR TORTURE VICTIMS (PTV) APPLAUD “GANG OF EIGHT” 

FOR ELIMINATING FILING DEADLINE IN

PROPOSED IMMIGRATION REFORM LEGISLATION

LOS ANGELES, CA – The Program for Torture Victims (PTV) today released the following statement in response to the comprehensive immigration reform legislation announced by the bipartisan “Gang of Eight” in the Senate:

PTV believes current arbitrary filing deadline for asylum seekers adds an extra administrative step of verifying an application’s timeliness, regardless of whether it bears any relevance to the merits of the applicant’s claim. It creates further bureaucracy and cost in the overall system and is an impediment for legitimate asylum seekers, including torture survivors, to receive the protection that America has promised. “Eliminating the filing deadline has long been a top priority for PTV, and we applaud the ‘Gang of Eight’ for removing this unnecessary hurdle in their proposed immigration reform legislation,” said PTV, Executive Director Trip Oldfield.

The majority of torture survivors PTV treats in their Los Angeles and Orange County offices are asylum seekers who suffered unimaginable cruelty at the hands of oppressive states. Unfortunately, many face barriers in the current asylum and immigration processes that exacerbate the severe mental health consequences of the torture they’ve suffered.

PTV is pleased to see that several provisions in the proposed bill would benefit thousands of torture survivors each year while helping to clear backlogs in the immigration courts, and ultimately save taxpayer dollars by reducing unnecessary bureaucracy. Torture’s physical scars may heal quickly, but the psychological wounds can run deep into a survivor’s psyche and spirit. Even for the most resilient survivors, the journey to healing after serious trauma can be complicated and filled with setbacks. PTV clients with cases before the immigration court express repeatedly that the worst part is the anguish is the waiting. The current process takes years, during which time these clients are often separated from family members and continue to face the terrifying possibility of being returned to their home countries and back into the hands of their torturers. The stress of this uncertainty makes a survivor’s healing and community integration even more difficult.

“There is much more to be done to improve and reform immigration policy this year,” said Oldfield. “However, based on the Senate’s initial proposal, we are encouraged that our elected officials are moving in the right direction.”

The Program for Torture Victims rebuilds the lives of torture survivors from over 65 countries who have stood up for freedom, equality and human dignity. PTV has offices in both Los Angeles and Orange Counties. Visit www.ptvla.org for more information.

XXX

 Release 04-23-2013 Immigration Reform

SAVE THE DATE

Thursday, September 12th 2013

Reception & Silent Action 5pm

Dinner & Program 7pm

at the  

The Center at Cathedral Plaza  

PLEASE HELP US PROVIDE FOOD FOR OUR PTV SURVIVORS

Our Food Pantry  is a crucial lifeline for our PTV survivors and their families who rely on it for nutritious meals. Our food pantry is entirely dependent on local community support—it does not receive any government subsidies. When donating, please be sure that items are not past their expiration date. The pantry must discard all items that are expired.

Despite international prohibition more than 100 countries currently engage in the torturing  of their own people – countries like, Congo, Iran, Armenia, and China.  PTV rebuilds the lives of torture survivors who have stood up for freedom, equality and human dignity.

These individuals and families, who have fled to the Unites States for asylum, desperately need our help, PTV provides them with medical care, psychological counseling and social services to help heal the wounds and provide a new start to a better life and you can help them directly with your generous gift of non- perishable food and toiletry items.

Drop Off Location

Downtown Los Angeles:

Monday through  Friday, from 9am to 5pm,  please bring your non- perishable food and toiletry donation to our PTV office, located on the second floor of the Mercado La Palma, at 3655 S. Grand Ave, suite 290 Los Angeles, CA 90007.

Top 10 most needed food items

• Rice

• Pasta

• Lentils

• Crackers

• Evaporated Milk

• Sugar

• Peanut Butter

• Canned Vegetables and Fruit

•  Beans

•  Soup

Thank you for your generosity!

]]> http://ptvla.org/2013-spring-food-drive-week-kicks-off-may-6th/feed/ 0 http://ptvla.org/los-angeles-magazine/ http://ptvla.org/los-angeles-magazine/#comments Fri, 15 Mar 2013 22:18:50 +0000 Admin http://ptvla.org/?p=920 PTV’s co-founder, Ana Deutsch, is featured in the February 2013 edition of L.A. Magazine for her work with torture survivors. Click below, written by Anne Taylor Fleming.

Come and support our survivors they share aspects of their true personal stories in order to put human faces on what are usually abstract accounts of suffering and injustice. These men and women have never appeared onstage this way before and yet they bravely invite you to witness their courage as they undergo ordeals of survival, growth, and transformation. Together, we will celebrate the human spirit and the power these extraordinary individuals have brought to rebuilding their lives.

Performances of We are Here will take place on the following dates:

Tuesday, February 26th
Mercado La Paloma at 7:30 PM
3655 S Grand Ave, Los Angeles, CA 90007
Click here for more information. 

Wednesday, February 27th
Club Fais Do-Do at 7:30 PM
5257 W Adams Blvd, Los Angeles, CA 90016
Click here for more information. 

All performances are free of charge and made possible by a grant from the Los Angeles Department of Cultural Affairs.

PTV’s co-founder, Ana Deutsch, is featured in the February 2013 edition of L.A. Magazine for her work with torture survivors. Click here to read the full article, written by Anne Taylor Fleming.

In this special report Univision Los Angeles and Univision Interactive Media (UIM) spoke with PTV’s Dr. Quiroga, a witnesses to the 1973 coup of Salvador Allende, in Chile. Click here to see the interview.

Board member Julie Gutman writes a letter to the editor of the LA Times, in response to the editorial, “On Torture, Romney’s Wrong”.

Click here to read the editorial

Click here to read the response