What is NST?  A Human Rights Perspective

Torture is Violence Beyond Abuse

 Torture is the intentional infliction of pain and suffering, either mental or physical or both, in order to coerce, intimidate, punish, or control.

Most countries and international agreements include prohibitions against torture, but only when torture is used as a tool by "state actors", in other words, by those who are employed by the government. 

International bodies, such as the United Nations, recognize the right of persons to live free from torture.

 

NST is Torture committed in the Private Sphere

Non-State Torture (NST) is torture committed in public or private, in relationships, perpetrated within families, in human trafficking, in prostitution, in pornographic exploitation, by violent individuals, groups and gangs, dismissed as socio-cultural, traditional or religious acts and norms and can be committed during migration, displacement, in humanitarian and civil unrest, for example.

4 Categories of Non-State Torture

NST is a global unacknowledged human rights violation and crime. It’s an around the world global reality.

Category 1
Non-State Torture (Classic)

by parents, partner, guardian, peer, others

  • Electric shocking
  • Beaten, burned, cut whipped
  • Immobilization torture: tied, hung, caged
  • Water tortures, in tub, sink, lake
  • Suffocation and choking tortures
  • Sexualized tortures: by individuals, groups. Networks, with weapons, objects, or animals
  • Chemical torture: polydrugging
  • Deprivations: nourishment, sleep
  • Exposure: to heat/cold, light/darkness
  • Psychological tortures: dehumanization, degradation, humiliation, animalization
  • Forced nakedness
  • Witnessing torture: others, pets, animals
  • Powerlessness: captivity
  • Ritualism torture tactics

Category 2 
Commercial-based Non-State Torture

  • Tortured by human traffickers
  • Tortured in prostitution by pimps and buyers
  • Tortured by pornographic exploiters
  • Snuff porn by pornographic exploiters
  • Tortured by others such as employers of vulnerable domestic workers, migrants, or other women and children

Category 3 
Socio-Cultural, Traditional & Religious Acts/Norms that Amount to Non-State Torture

  • FGM
  • Acid burning
  • Child marriage
  • Widow rituals

Category 4
Non-State Torture by Groups, Gangs, Networks

  • Organized criminals
  • Para-military groups
  • Terrorists
  • Cybercriminals
  • Mercenaries
  • Others

The right not to be subjected to torture is codified in international human rights treaties signed by many countries. For example, Article 5 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights states:

"No one shall be subjected to torture, to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment."

NST Wheel

 

NST Wheel

A Human Rights perspective of Non-State Torture (NST)

Non-State Torture is identified as a distinct and specific crime and human rights offence which must not be misnamed as being another form of crime such as an assault causing bodily harm or abuse.

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