An uphill battle
Truro women’s non-state torture campaign spreads around the world
In 1993 Jeanne Sarson and Linda Macdonald met a woman who told them her story of being tortured and tracked by her husband, setting them on a journey they are still on today.
And as part of that journey, the Truro women went to Geneva in February to present to the United Nations’ Human Rights Council on non-state torture
“Our work is being recognized at a higher level,” said Macdonald. “ere are people around the world who want to work with us, and the ripple e ect is getting larger.”
e women estimate about 5,000 people, from around the world, have related their stories of being tortured. At the UN event, the woman asked the council to support a recommendation for new, legally-binding human rights laws, with a monitoring body to address violence against women and girls.
Article 5 in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, designed as a ban on torture, states: “No one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treat--
ment or punishment.”
“Article 5 of the Universal Declaration is rarely applied to the non-state torture of women and girls,” Sarson said in her presentation to the UN. “We ask how many more women and girls of all ages must su er before the Council and States commit to implementing Article 5 equally and legally to all
women and girls subjected to non-State torture.”
In March, Macdonald and Sarson were members of a panel at a human rights event in New York, where they shared a presentation called ‘A Canadian experience: Discrimination in law on non-State torture (NST) negates human rights equality, social justice & in- clusion of victimized women & girls.’
During this event, the book ‘Gender Perspectives on Torture: Law and Practice,’ in which they have a chapter called, ‘How Non-state Torture is Gendered and Invisibilized: Canada’s Non-Compliance with the Committee Against Torture’s Recommendations’ was launched.
“Our chapter is challenging Canada about the failure to uphold the recommendations of the United Nations Committee Against Torture,” said Sarson. “Despite the 2012 Concluding Observations of the Committee against Torture presented to Canada recommending Canada incorporate into domestic law torture perpetrated by non-state actors, this has been rejected.”
Macdonald and Sarson have also written a book about the rst woman who told them her story of being trafficked, that they hope to have published soon. e woman’s husband took her from Nova Scotia to Ontario, where she was gang raped and then held captive for four and a half years.