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• Psychosocial assistants or health care workers are not competent to record reports of abuse for the purpose of judicial processes or other investigations, nor is it appropriate for them to receive such reports.
• If a woman decides to report abuses against her, medical and psychological records may be made available as corroborating evidence, if the woman concerned wishes.
• Helpers and health care staff may inform officials who are investigating allegations of abuse on what terms relevant medical and forensic evidence will be made available to them.
• A woman who wishes to report her abuse should be made aware of the legal requirements associated with reporting abuses and laying legal charges.
• Psychosocial and health care workers should respect guidelines on documenting torture and ill-treatment.
PART III: THEORY
Under both approaches, professionals who provide psychosocial and health care to survivors should clearly separate their work from the work of reporting abuses and gathering evidence for prosecution or investigations. Health care work and legal and human rights work belong in separate domains.
In this spirit, a care provider should not be involved in initiatives to report or lay charges, nor should she encourage survivors to report their abuse. She may provide information about the options a survivor has, and where she can go to explore them. Under existing guidelines, health care professionals who document torture are not necessarily the persons who provide immediate care and support to survivors; they are required to act ethically, of course, but their objective is to document rather than care. Professionals in different fields should work in a complementary and coordinated manner, but respect their separate functions.
For the care provider
When issues of reporting or denouncing violations arise, a helper should:
• Know what is required and where reports of abuse can be registered.
• Seek out this information if it is not already available.
• Make the woman aware of the legal and other requirements associated with reporting.
• Abstain from any form of reporting in her capacity as a health or psychosocial helper.
• Provide documentation on a complainant’ s health situation to officials responsible for the case, if requested, after obtaining the complainant’ s permission.
• Provide any information that is requested in a strictly objective manner.
• Brief a woman who wishes to complain, so that she can make a responsible judgement. Where relevant, make sure that she also understands the risks she may face( that the police may conduct themselves unprofessionally or be offensive, that judicial officials may be bribed, that the media may misrepresent her, that she may be threatened or intimidated by associates of those who attacked her, etc.).
• Inform the woman that she will speak to officials, in whom she should be able to confide, but underline that officials are not in the position of a helper.
• Assist or help a survivor to report her abuse, but do so only when she asks specifically.
• Take cognisance of the fact that a survivor who complains will find the experience highly stressful, and may be unable to manage the stress or answer questions.
• Provide a woman who wishes to complain with information, where possible, about the meaning and purpose and effect of reporting.