16 same way as child witnesses are protected in child abuse cases. It may be argued that adult torture victims do not deserve such protection and should be subject to robust cross-examination, but this ignores a very important matter. The issue of torture is not merely a matter of giving a statement of opinion, but can be verified by hard evidence, by hard medical evidence. So the court has already strong prima facie evidence that a person has been tortured, and, even if this not available prior to testimony, it can be subsequently provided by forensic examination. Torture victims as witnesses are thus clearly in a different category to ordinary witnesses to civil or criminal proceedings, and this is wholly due to the availability of medical evidence. This was the first time in Zimbabwe law that such numbers of torture victims testified in the Zimbabwean courts, and thus it is unsurprising that the courts were unaware of the issues surrounding torture. However, this will not be the case in the future, and we would hope that the courts learn from this experience and set in place more humane proceedings, both before and during testimony. Ignorance cannot be an excuse in the future, more especially when the records of these cases now reflects expert evidence on the effects of torture, as was the case in the yet to be completed petition on the Marondera East constituency. Finally, we must comment, as our title suggests, upon the heroism of the many torture victims who testified in these cases. It took considerable courage to stand up in public to talk about their horrible treatment and humiliation that they suffered. It took even greater courage to do so when they faced the possibility of further attack and torture. These victims are the most powerful example today in Zimbabwe of the faith that ordinary Zimbabweans have in the law and democracy: they are indeed heroes, all of them! Heroism in the Dock: Does testifying help victims of organised violence and torture? A pilot study from Zimbabwe.