UK legislation to curb torture prosecutions must be stopped

I arrived in the United Kingdom two decades ago after fleeing torture and violence in my native country, DR Congo. Having found sanctuary and new citizenship, I rebuilt my life here. Advocating for refugees and torture survivors all over the world, I felt proud when I was appointed one of two Survivor Champions for the British government’s Preventing Sexual Violence in Conflict Initiative (PSVI). Now, the same government is proposing legislation which paves the way for those who commit torture to evade justice. For me and other torture survivors living in Britain, the Overseas Operations Bill has been a punch in the gut. It proposes the creation of a “presumption against prosecution” for members of the UK armed forces accused of grave crimes, including torture, committed overseas more than five years earlier, barring only “exceptional circumstances”. While I welcome that this bill doesn’t include the heinous crime of rape or sexual violence, are we to understand that torture is a “lesser” crime? In central Africa where I grew up, war criminals and torturers went unpunished, or were appointed to the highest positions of state. I have seen first-hand the catastrophic impact of torture – the way it traumatises whole families, societies and generations. I have also seen what happens when a government starts to slide back on an absolute torture ban.