12 one doesn’t know that he is doing wrong and does not repent, this is what pains me most. If the country is in this state, what difference is there between a dog and a human being. If I don’t enjoy the freedom to go to my home place, the place where I was born, this pains me. Since birth, I have never experienced such pain. Also I have a lot of problems which need my attention in the same year at the same time. I never expect the future solutions to my problems to come to an end. I wish an end of era to such problems, except that I was lucky to get an organization which is helping me. For someone of my age, when I just sit and eat, I’m like vegetables in the garden which are just watered without making any production. I look forward to plan my life, to a bright future. I look forward that what I had accumulated will help me in my life. If this is destroyed by someone who made no contribution towards it, and has no right to do so, it’s painful. What happens when you are in pain and you long for a long life, it’s a problem because deep thoughts can bring in illness. Discussion It is a striking and repetitive aspect, particularly of the men’s stories, that impoverishment, loss of economic self-reliance and attendant social status are all negatively impacted by the experience of victimisation and displacement. We are aware that long term healing also requires a broader programme of economic assistance that is beyond the scope of our work. Certain voices and experiences are significant by their absence from these narratives. For example, women are grossly under-represented here although the men who speak also point out that their wives, mothers, daughters and other female kin have also been direct victims. In the three transcripts that represent women’s experience directly it is striking that their healing must co-exist with their ongoing attention to the needs of their male relatives. We have many questions about how the gendered role of caregiver can proceed with the demands of personal healing. Even more absent are the voices of children: although all these accounts show some evidence of the plight of children either as direct victims or as witnesses. There is clearly a very pressing need to find out how these children are coping and what help they may need to make sense of their very violent worlds. We are also struck by the muted way in which sexual victimisation, in particular, is given voice. We are aware that women, girls and in some cases men may well have been raped and sexually assaulted and humiliated as an aspect of their overall abuse through OVT. With the men we are aware that, since both our counsellors were AMANI Trust: At the boiling point of the pain. Report of a pilot study examining the eficacy of psychotherapy for torture survivors.