VOA标准英语2012--Helping Victims of Torture

 

Helping¹ Victims of Torture

Tuesday is International Day in Support of Victims of Torture. The theme is: Rehabilitation² works and is a torture survivor’s right. June 26th is the 25th anniversary of the U.N. Convention against Torture.

“When we talk about rehabilitation is a need and a right it means that, according to the international conventions, people who have been subjected to torture and survived have the right to get a holistic³ rehabilitation. They have the right to medical services. Often they need psychological support in different ways. Sometimes they also need legal support in trying to promote their cases against their perpetrators. And very often also support in income generation,” said Brita Sydhoff, secretary-general of the International Rehabilitation Council for Torture Victims based in Copenhagen.

Progress, but much work to do

She said progress has been made against torture around the world.

“The good news I would say is that torture has very much diminished, or at least become very much less, in places like Chile and Argentina, the cone⁴ of Latin America and also of course Europe,” she said.

She also points to Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff – a former Marxist rebel – who was herself a victim of torture. But despite the progress, Sydhoff said there’s much more work to be done.

“We have still far too many countries where torture is very prevalent and actually on the increase. And I would say the increasing countries are those countries that are suffering from often conflict and very often also internal conflict, where torture, like in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, is actually a weapon [used] by the militias⁵ and the soldiers to try and see that the local populations are displaced, or that they behave in a way that they think they should do,” she said.

She added she believes torture will eventually be ended.

“You can fight it and you can forbid it and you can simply say that this is very inhumane and a disgrace to human kind that this kind of activities still go on. I think there is a possibility of doing away with torture. It’s very much a will of governments and a will of people to try to not hurt each other unnecessarily, especially not to torture, said Sydhoff.

The International Rehabilitation Council for Torture Victims is an umbrella body for 150 rehabilitation centers in more than 70 countries.

1 helping   

n.食物的一份&adj.帮助人的，辅助的

参考例句：

• The poor children regularly pony up for a second helping of my hamburger. 那些可怜的孩子们总是要求我把我的汉堡包再给他们一份。
• By doing this, they may at times be helping to restore competition. 这样一来, 他在某些时候,有助于竞争的加强。

2 rehabilitation   

n.康复，悔过自新，修复，复兴，复职，复位

参考例句：

• He's booked himself into a rehabilitation clinic.他自己联系了一家康复诊所。
• No one can really make me rehabilitation of injuries.已经没有人可以真正令我的伤康复了。

3 holistic   

adj.从整体着眼的，全面的

参考例句：

• There is a fundamental ambiguity in the use of word "whole" in recent holistic literature.在近代的整体主义著作中，“整体”这个词的用法极其含混。
• In so far as historicism is technological,its approach is not piecemeal,but "holistic".仅就历史决定论是一种技术而论，它的方法不是渐进的，而是“整体主义的”。

4 cone   

n.圆锥体，圆锥形东西，球果

参考例句：

• Saw-dust piled up in a great cone.锯屑堆积如山。
• The police have sectioned off part of the road with traffic cone.警察用锥形路标把部分路面分隔开来。

5 militias   

n.民兵组织，民兵( militia的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• The troops will not attempt to disarm the warring militias. 部队并不打算解除战斗中的民兵武装。 来自辞典例句
• The neighborhood was a battleground for Shiite and Sunni militias. 那里曾是什叶派和逊尼派武装分子的战场。 来自互联网