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Most victims have prolonged suffering, but never receive treatment or counseling. Allen Keller of the Bellevue/New York University Program for Survivors of Torture says that for every patient his program treats, two more seek help.

Escaping from torture and abuse is only the first step of a very traumatic process. Bob Fu and his wife had little time to think during their harrowing escape, a trip that involved careening away from military jeeps in Beijing, sliding past corrupt police, and becoming the last politically sensitive refugees to be let out of Hong Kong before the Communist government took control in 1997.

Then the battle to make a new life in America took over. Before being allowed to stay in America, many refugees tortured or abused for their faith have to relive their nightmare by detailing their stories during the application process for asylum.

"Lawyers revictimize them by making them relive the memories. But there isn't much choice if they want to win asylum," Holston says. Lawyers need a special sensitivity and skill in helping victims tortured or abused for their faith. "It is very painful for them, and they don't like to talk about it. Then, when they do, they talk only generally."

Keller says his patients have undergone beatings, burns, electrical shocks, cuts with sharp objects, asphyxiation, foreign objects forced into their genitals, rape and sexual assault, mock executions, deprivation of food and water, exposure to heat and cold, forced labor, imprisonment under inhuman conditions, and witnessing the torture and murder of others. "Not surprisingly," Keller observes dryly, "our clients suffer significant physical and psychological results."

Keller notes that some torture victims don't have scars or nightmares. "It's not that simple. Tragically, torturers around the world are becoming increasingly sophisticated in the methods they use." One West African was locked for more than a year in a closet with 500-watt light bulbs that were never turned off. He has no visible scars, but now experiences chronic uneasiness, fatigue, and numbness.

Meredith Hawkins, researcher at Albert Einstein School of Medicine and a member of Redeemer Presbyterian Church in New York, says one of her biggest challenges is getting churches to put torture victims on their agendas. "The Bellevue/New York University program is one of the largest in the country and treats many Christians, but they are uneasy with Christians because of their secular outlook," she says. "Church volunteers could really help."

The origin of the well-known Bellevue/NYU program goes back to the time Kina Kagama (a pseudonym) of Togo dazedly stumbled into the emergency room with a Bible under an arm deeply marked by shackles. Keller couldn't figure out what was ailing Kagama because the marks on his arms were not severe enough for his bad state.

"It struck me: the guy had suffered a severe psychological trauma," Keller says. "As I went over his history, it came out that his symptoms resulted from his torture in Togo."

Kagama's case also illustrates how religious, ethnic and political conflict often overlap in torture and abuse cases. Kagama was an active Christian and a defender of democratic freedoms based on his Christian convictions. But the government tortured him first for his politics, then for being a member of the wrong tribe, and finally as a warning to other Christians and missionaries to stay away from human-rights concerns. In a few cases, missionaries avoid publicly helping torture victims for fear of getting kicked out of the country.

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March 6 2000, Vol. 44, No. 3