Educational Media Reviews Online

Refuge: Caring for Survivors of Torture looks at five treatment programs that provide counseling and services such as job skills training to immigrant refugees who have experienced political violence. Through interviews with psychiatrists and other physicians, the film does an excellent job providing medical practitioners with useful information on how to recognize and treat patients who present with symptoms indicative of torture. It outlines doctors’ ethical responsibility for treating the underlying trauma, while acknowledging the difficulties entailed in this work. The film interestingly highlights reasons why refugees’ past experiences may make them suspicious of doctors in particular, as well as reactions caused by the stressful aspects of a medical environment.

The primary audiences that would benefit from the film are students of medicine or counseling, as well as workers in organizations that provide aid and assistance to immigrant communities—be they from Sudan, Kurdistan, or Nepal—who seek asylum in U.S. cities and towns. Though the film touches on some of the political causes of torture, it would be less appropriate for political science classes that discuss political violence more generally. The filmmaking itself is fairly straightforward, in keeping with the seriousness of the subject matter, and the film depicts the survivors with dignity and respect, as one would expect of a film created in association with multiple torture support centers.