SALLY: Hi, it's Sally Jackson here volunteer with FiLiA, and I'm really pleased to be joined by two women who have been leading the way in addressing non-state torture. Linda McDonald and Jeanne Sarson. I will ask them to introduce themselves, give it a little bit of background of their experience and how they've put into this.

LINDA: Alright, so I'm Linda McDonald and I am a Canadian. I'm a feminist grassroots activist and my, a bit of my history, I was born into violence myself. My father was very violent and I, my mother never left, so I was trapped in the violence until I get out when I went into nursing and then I was sexually assaulted.

I was sexually assaulted. By a so-called friend when I was in my early twenties, so that kind of formulated my understanding of violence. I always knew that abuse was wrong. I knew I was in an abusive family growing up. I never thought it was normal. And so, I always knew that I was fighting for my own, my own survival and my own sanity.

 I really tried to find different people to talk to about it, but never really found anyone until I met Jean. Jean and I started working together in the same office in 1990, and we were both nurses in a community health, Public health nursing office, and that was the first time in my life that I, even though I'd been to different groups and things, I never found anybody that would really freely talk about violence the way Jean did and that that changed my life.

SALLY: Thank you and Jeanne?

JEANNE: Well, Sally, like many women all over the world. You know, we keep saying the same story, just like Linda said, being born into the oppression of patriarchy and the violence that comes with it. I too was born into a family with a father who was a chronic daily alcoholic and was very violent.

And that was a time when women weren't supposed to leave violent relationships and society never even thought about children. My mother was Catholic and the priest would come and when my father called him and he'd come in and he'd say to my mother, you know, you really have to make this work.

You know, this is where you're supposed to stay. It didn't matter. And I can still remember my father would give him a $20 bill, he'd shove it in his pocket and he'd leave. 

You know, and it's really important to talk about how patriarchy plays out because if we don't tell the stories the way they really happen, we miss the clues.

I mean, I was sexually assaulted too as a five-year-old by two teenagers, and that was even before the time that violence against children was even considered something that should be illegal. 

But at the same time, I watched my mother and watched how society treated her. So I learned to, I think, very young without having the terminology to understand, I did understand that she was at a disadvantage being female, being a woman in a community that looked at her and thought she should not be allowed to exist as a woman who left her husband. 

And you know, the issue, I've been thinking quite a bit about this because, we get into the issue of otherthorization so quickly, and I was thinking this morning, if I had a wish, what would it be? And I think it would be to promote human right equality and to prevent otherthorization. Because the harms of otherthorization are endless. They go on and on and on. 

So I learned that very young. So I think in ways, my feminism started very young. I was like three years old when I tried to convince my mother never to go back to my father. So it's important to listen to children, you know, because even today we know that children are in court systems and they're not being listened to, their voices are not being heard. They're not asked to give their opinion in a way that's heard and respected.

 So I'm thrilled, Sally, that you're asking us to share former violence that really has been otherized globally. So you are part of the advocacy and activism as a volunteer for FiLiA so I thank you for that. 

SALLY: Oh, and huge thanks to you both for the work that you do.

And we were delighted when you were able to attend FiLiA before and brought for me for the first time that I'd, I'd even heard of the concept of non-state torture. And over the years, thanks to you, I've learned an awful lot more about it. But I think I was just struck there. It's interesting that

when you met, you could find someone that you could actually talk about these things with and who understood, you know, what was going on. And that can be so important for us as women is to be able to not just share, but also be heard about what's happened to us. And that enabled you to kind of understand this concept, which, which you've, named Non-state torture.

 Can you tell me a little bit about how that happened and, and what your thoughts were, why you came up with that title? 

LINDA: Well, as we, as we started talking Jean kept saying that, you know, she let, she, her dream was to have a. Nursing practice that we could, she could be doing some counseling helping women or men or anyone understand what abuse we were talking abuse at that time and how it harms a person's sense of self. I. And I kept saying, well, I'm not ready for that. I'm, you know, I don't have, I don't really feel that I have the skill to do that. Jean kept saying, oh yeah, you'll be fine. 

Anyway, so after about two years of talking to her, because I mean, I had a lot of unpacking to do, I had in my head. I just had to unpack it all and make connections more with myself. I didn't feel ready to help someone else if I didn't understand myself more. I was just like a, well, I can remember the day she asked me, you know, and about feminism, like, about power. And I mean, I understood feminism somewhat, but I hadn't had a lot of conversation either about it.

But she said, well, you know I would allly with men often. And she'd say, well, why would that be? And of course I knew then right away it was the power, right? Allow wanting power. I wasn't an aggressive feminist like that kind of, I just wanted to be around. I think I was not feeling comfortable in a oppress group behavior 'cause I felt I had something to say. 

Anyways, it all exploded in my brain. I can remember that. So then as we started talking, we eventually did decide on private practice and we, we went one night a week. And sat down and listened to people talk about their violence that they'd been subjected to. And we helped a lot of people heal in very short period of time because we had a framework that it's not a mental illness, that it's a human rights violation and that it's an educational framework that we offered.

And it was just thrilling how quickly young people and men and older women were coming and, and really moving through it. But six months into it, Sarah, who was in our first book, Women Un Silenced. The first night we heard her describe all of the torture ritualism that she was subjected to and the different type of torture tactics.

We knew. I know people think it took us a while to come to that, but it was instantaneous. We talked about it after listening to her that that was torture. We'd never heard torture before described in family, and then she came back the next week and the more unfolded, and we were definitely adamant then that this is torture. This is not abuse, it's not anything we've ever been subjected to, and it's a different crime. 

So we started looking it up in the criminal code, found it wasn't in our own Canadian criminal code. And that started us on our journey of naming non-state torture and understanding the crime and what the mo of the perpetrators is and fighting for the rights of those women and children who have been subjected to non-state torture.

JEANNE: There's a story to every little advancement, I guess. Because when we first started, we listened to, like Linda said, Sarah, and what she brought, and she brought really not her own story, but the story that society was trying to have her fit into which was mental illness, which was multiplicity, you know, and It wasn't fitting for her, but the pressure to be considered mentally ill was there to be pathologized, and yet she was resisting because the system kept wanting to pathologize her. 

So what happened and how we got into deciding to keep moving with her is that she absolutely refused to go into the healthcare system, the institutionalized system, because she said, I don't fit there. It's dangerous for me. I don't wanna be pathologized, I don't wanna be given all these labels. 

And it made sense to me because personally here again, I go back to when my mother finally left and I don't know exactly how the story happened, but I ended up in hospital for testing, and in the conversation they sent me to a psychiatrist and I'm like, I don't know what I was maybe 14 or something. 12 or 14. And I'm looking at this male psychiatrist and I'm thinking to myself. I don't know why I'm here, but. I don't belong here, and I think you have more problems than I have. 

You know, when you're a teenager, you go for it. So I went home and they sent me to a psychiatrist in the town that I lived in.

So I thought, well, I have to follow the process. So I went to see him and I said, hello and. This is who I am and I'm leaving now. I'll take care of myself and away I went and that was the end of it. 

So, you know, based on how we move in life without fear, I really must say I don't think I was ever fearful.

So when Sarah came and started. Saying that the institution had harmed her, that she was being pathologized and was really upset about how she felt about how she was being treated, It made sense to me because I'd been down that road myself, so it made sense. What I was naive about is I had no idea, like Linda said, that violence within a family would amount to torture.

So I really, we were both naive when we decided not to abandon her because we could find nobody else who had the skill or the knowledge to help her. And she was suicidal. And we decided, well, we wouldn't abandon her. And then we said to her, we know nothing about healing from non-state torture, from torture. Really, we didn't have that term then. That was in 1993. But we will try our best to do no harm. 

And that started our journey, Sally, that. Here we are 32 years later, still on that path. And in some ways it's really rooted in our own experience and being willing to listen to other women whose ordeals are different. But there is a connection. 

There is a connection of what the system does to women and girls and all people. Who have been harmed through relational violence, whether it's public or private. So I think that's really how we got here and that's why we're talking to you and just refusing to be quiet because we were never quiet growing up either.

SALLY: Thank you for that. We need women to, to speak up and, and speak out and I'm so glad that you have, and it, it strikes me so often that when either as a result of something that's happened to women or women just not fitting into that square peg that society wants to put them in, we get that label mad, bad or, or sad and you know, and then treated accordingly rather than as you did stopping and listening and, and being there with someone as they unpack the things that have happened to them.

And it, it struck me. You’ve been working with people that have been subjected to abuse, but obviously with Sarah, you saw something very different. And I'm, I'm aware, just yesterday it was the, the International day speaking out against torture. But you've named this slightly differently, so can you talk to me a little bit about, you know, where I think people understand what torture is?

They've heard of that and they often, I think all to maybe think of military and war situations and things like that. 

So. what is non-state torture and how did you come up with that description to account for what had happened to Sarah and, and sadly, many other women? 

LINDA: Well, as you say, most people know what torture is, but what they know is state torture. That's the stereotypical torture that everyone thinks about, that. You know, you're a prisoner of war, you've been tortured during war conflict in a police station in an embassy. You know, something, something where states sanctioned and because we have a human rights framework, we use the human rights language.

So that's what state torture is. It's a United Nations language about torture, and all we knew was that the torture that was happening in families, in hotels, in human trafficking, in warehouses, and we then we started to learn about women that had been tortured by their husbands who hadn't been born into families.

But it was all in the, we didn't have the term back in the, in the nineties. We only learned the term in 2004. When we were at the UN and a woman there who was very respected, Charlotte Brunch, someone introduced us to her and she said, well, you, you're talking about something that's non-state. It's by non-state actors. 

We'd not heard of that term before. So we went across the street to Amnesty International and there was two booklets there. We'd each have one still, and they'd talk about non-state actors in the booklet. So we knew then that we were talking about non-state actors, parents are non-state actors, husbands are non-state actors, traffickers are, pimps are, Buyers are, paramilitary are, most of the framework was around paramilitary, but we could apply all the other people and perpetrators that we knew as non-state actors. 

So then we just went, okay, well there's state torture, then there's non-state torture. It's pretty simple. One's by state actors and one's by non-state actors. 

So we thought that was pretty simple. But boys, I'll tell you, it hasn't been simple. It hasn't been simple for people to embrace that. They wanted to tell us we had the wrong language. They wanted to tell us to change it, that we don't need the non-state, that people won't understand it.

But we just kept resisting that because we just knew it was the right language and because, you know, when people invented the word rape or sexual harassment or Cyber people don't say, well, that's the wrong word. You know, we just grow with the words. We, we add them to our vocabulary. But people really, really resisted this word, and I think it's because the idea that this much torture happens in families and in homes and in private places that are by everyday people. People want to not believe it really happens. It's like the worst thing you, you can imagine. 'cause of course it is the worst crime, in my opinion. It's the worst human rights violation. So people have resisted that and we've just been persistent in that. 

Because if I say to you a woman was tortured, are they, are people gonna think, oh, that's right. She was water tortured in the tub at home? No. They're gonna think that she was in conflict and she was tortured in war. That's 

where their brain is gonna go. They're not gonna go So, so if you say non-state, then people have to think, they have to ask what that means.

It opens the conversation and that's when we do the education. 

JEANNE: I was just wondering, Sally, if you wanted Linda to read the definition because it expanded so much. I mean, we started with Sarah. And then the next question for us, if I go back to 1993, is, a few years later when Sarah, when we were moving through the chaos of trying to help Sarah, knowing that she was improving, but it was a day-to-day demand, we asked the question, is she the only one in Nova Scotia? Is it that rare that she's the only one? 

So we put out word because we live in a small province. We put out word, are there any other women who would identify that they suffered torture? So five other women contacted us, so we decided we'd do our kitchen table research. What we did, we called a kitchen table because that's where we went.

We went to their kitchen table, wherever that was, to listen to their story and we listened and we wrote what they said and we took back their notes for them to correct it. Because really what it was asking us to do was as if I was all of a sudden flying across the universe and was jet propelled into a culture I knew nothing about. I knew nothing of the language, nothing of the customs, just nothing. A zero. 

So that's what we went to learn. To listen to their reality in a way that they wanted to share it. And after they shared what they wanted to share, we had developed a model and then we asked them if it fit. And they all absolutely said yes, but the language was new to them too.

Because society hadn't even, most of them were told they were lying or it wasn't true, or that they were mentally ill. So most of the time they had been very quiet because here again, just like Sarah, they didn't agree. They knew, you know, they had relationships that developed after they fled their families. You know, some of them had children. So they knew that they were functioning, but it was hard because they were also, it's that idea of otherization. You know, Sarah says, I don't wanna die like a freak or a nit, because society has otherized me because they won't even accept the story I have to tell, you know? So those five other people gave us another push, I guess, around the activism. 

And it's not totally finished yet either, because there is that question for us. Where does human cruelty and torture. When does that line disappear? And that's a question around the Universal Convention against Torture because everybody wants to make that link non-state torture and state torture. How do they come together? 

And we had to use the state torture to understand what are the tactics of state tortures, what do they do that society has accepted a human right crime of torture? and having that list and seeing the same thing that non-state torturers do, it would've been unjust for us to not respect that and respect the dignity of the women who were saying, yes, that fits for me.

 I was thinking today, this morning, promote human right equality. If in public   prison is torture, and then you go private and the same things, and you want to ignore that. That's equality. That's where the othiorization harms come in because you're already harming socially for the women who are tortured privately or in their community by others, not their family.

So one of the women that said she was tortured in the end, she said, I don't know if I was, because we had to listen to what women think, and we still do. We don't tell people they were tortured. It's up to an individual to decide that. But they have the information now. They have our questionnaire. They can look at it and say, yeah, that fits for me. This is what I think.

 But the woman out of the five, she said, I'm not sure, but Linda and I have thought a lot about her because maybe society would say it's human cruelty. It doesn't quite meet the standard of what society has deemed as torture. But she was hunted down, you know, her husband hunting her at night with a rifle to kill her.

You know, she was beaten. She was forcily aborted. You know, she was all kinds of cruel in, in humanity really. So I don't know if it's fair anymore to even say there's a difference between human cruelty and torture. 

I'm a little bit off the topic, but at the same time, the UN Convention Against Torture does put that Question to society, what's human cruelty and what's becomes torture? And the UN special repertoires on torture, like the present repertoire, she has a position that torture only happens in state actors. That line, that fixed line where you can't go off, that only torture happens by state actors, to me, that's a very firm otherization of harm when we're going to dismiss millions of women and girls predominantly whose victimization amounts to what they call extreme violence. What does that mean? Is that cruelty? Is that torture? I mean, where is that standard? 

So that's how Linda and I started. First was one woman, then went to five, and then we went to a conference in the US and met other people who agreed, and it's just grown from there. So I'll stop because I could go on forever. 

LINDA: I just wanna sayone thing that I think is a little different than what Jean said because I was on a webinar with the present special repertoire and torture, and I asked her a question about non-state torture, torture by non-state actors. That's how I framed it, and she did acknowledge that it happens. She doesn't deny that it happens, but she won't address it. Okay, so that's a step. Anyways, I felt it was a step 'because I wanted to find out if she even acknowledged that that torture would happen in human trafficking or in families. And she did acknowledge, she said, I understand that non-state actor torture does happen. 

So. I thought. I thought that was a bit of a step, but it's just a tiny one. I think it's a good point that Jean said about the definition. I'd like to read it now because we started out with a smaller one and it's just expanded over time. And after talking and working with other feminists, European feminists in particular, it's really expanded. 

So ‘non-state torture is torture that occurs in the domestic or private sphere, in relationships perpetrated within families, human trafficking, in prostitution, pornographic exploitation by violent groups and gangs dismissed as social, cultural, traditional or religious acts, and can be committed during migration, displacement, and in humanitarian or civil unrest.’

So that's our official definition. And the difference between abuse and torture, because people ask us that all the time. Abuse is really when a perpetrator wants to control the person and gain power over the person. Whereas with a torturer, the goal is destruction of the victim's, the woman or the child's sense of self. Their whole self. That's their goal is really to destroy them so that they can hold them captive in physical or psychological ways to have them as their own. A person that they can do whatever they want to them and that that's the ultimate goal. 

And they don't always succeed, which is the resilience of the human spirit and some of the acts of electric shocking.

Yesterday I was on another webinar and this woman who's an expert on torture, she was introducing me to this group because I'd asked a question in the chat and she said that our work is based on rape as torture. Now that is not true. It is not based on rape that is torture.

That's a problem that we're seeing that people are wanting us to box it into rape Now. Rape is horrible. It's a horrible crime. Some rape, I think could be considered torture and not all rape is, I don't think what happened to me would be considered torture.

 But if you've been raped 20,000 times or raped with guns and knives and all those things, or the brutality of gang rape, there's definitely, rape is a form of torture. But there's many other things like there's electric shocking, women and and girls are electric shocked. They're caged, they're shackled, they're strangled, they're burned, they're whipped. Forced abortions, like Jean talked about water torture. 

So it's all the MO of the state torture, but it happens to women and girls and we can't just, we can't just encapsulate it as being rape. So that's the story there. 

JEANNE: the other thing I would add is that we forget that the perpetrators have pleasure. I think the perpetrators of state torture have pleasure too. And in going to webinars where the people who are dealing with state torture, the talk about the perpetrators, I've not heard them bring up pleasure. But I've read books and some of the people who were tortured by state actors, they talk about the pleasure knowing that the perpetrators had pleasure.

So I think we have to admit that too to ourselves in order to understand what we're up against. And I don't know if this, this is a new learning, like Linda said, we're constantly learning. 

I can share this, that a mother whose son was adult son who was tortured by a on non-state actor they wanted to talk about the torture in the criminal case that they had. So the mother and her victim impact statement, when she used the word torture, all that was redacted. So she could not use, could not speak the reality that she felt emotionally and physically and knowing that her son, his life was changed, altered forever, and he could not use the term torture either. He had to use the word assault. So when it came time for the perpetrator to ask for a parole, they asked us if we would consider saying something to their parole board. So this was new learning and writing the letter, we had to think about it and the fact around data, you know, so much is said, we need the data.

Well, in Canada, there's no place for us to put the data because it's not even recognized as a crime. So I would assume that's the same in any country. If they don't recognize the crime, how are you gonna gather the data? It's just not gonna exist. So as a consequence in writing this, had to really think so the parole board, and there's parole boards probably in every country, legal parole boards. If you don't know the crime, if you don't name the crime, you don't know the perpetrator, you don't know their tactics, you might not understand the pleasure that they have in doing what they do. So how will a parole board make an informed decision if they don't even know the recidivism rate of non-state actors?

So there's a lot of risk in here by not naming the crime adequately and do we place more women and children at risk? 

So that was new learning for us because we didn't have to think about it in the same way as we had in writing that letter. So I'm just sharing that because there might be, you know, people in the legal profession that might think about it differently.

SALLY: Absolutely. And that is patriarchy in action, isn't it? When women aren't allowed to use the words of their reality to describe what's happened to them, which as you say, then influences how risk is assessed and et cetera. And obviously the chances of other women being harmed in the future because that language hasn't been, immediately just makes me, you know, not being allowed to talk in the way that makes sense to you. There's obviously, you know, so many frustrations like this, but have you also in, in the years you've been working on this, seen some positive changes and whether that's in Canada or globally with the work, I know you've done a lot of work with the UN in moving things forward there, 

LINDA: Yes, we have. We see progress, but it's snail pace slow. You know, but we knew it would be, intuitively, we just knew it would be, we developed a 60-year plan back in 1993, so that, that tells you something right there. So we're a little over halfway through.

 I don't know if we're doing as much as we hoped in the first 30 years. But it has come. I mean, the fact that you and, and Jean and I are talking shows that, right, the fact that we came into FiLiA in 2015 and we're coming back and you know, we've gotten a lot more recognition, the definition has changed because more feminists are recognizing it and survivors from all around the world.

We've had contact with thousands of survivors now from all around the world. You know, from many, many countries, and it's probably would have more if we could speak different languages. So that is a positive, but of course it's still not enough. 

And I just wanted to bring up something that really bothered me from yesterday, and that was the when we talk about the UN day to recognize the survivors of torture an organization that Jean had mentioned, the Special Rapporteur on torture she posted on LinkedIn a map of the countries where there's a global torture index and they've listed 10 countries where the risk of torture is very serious. 10 countries, she's talking about state torture. They should have had a global state torture index because that's not the global torture index. They're only gathering data on state torture.

So that means that the other a hundred eighty-five countries. There's no mention of the torture that happens there. And if we look at all the 195 countries, every one of those countries, women and children, would've been victims of non-state torture. It's just so much more rampant, so much more, perpetrated than, than state torture. And to think that it's still so invisibleized is just absolutely infuriating for me. So I'm glad you're gonna put up that map. Nothing like a picture to show you how invisibleized non-state torture is to see that map in those 10 red countries and the rest of the world looks like we can all claim that, oh no torture doesn't happen on any of these countries.

And we know it does. I mean, look how common, even if we just look at pornography and prostitution. And human trafficking. But the one place that people really don't wanna think about it is that it happens in families. That's that's the one we started with. And we're not giving up on families because there are a lot of parents out there that don't have the best intention for their children, and that just cannot be silenced forever.

Like Jeanne says, the otherthorization, it's just a total discrimination that they're left with their whole lives. And if you can't name something, you can't heal from it. 

JEANNE: So I go back to the Special Rapporteur and the fact that she said torture by non-state actors occurs. Generally, what has been accepted at the UN is around militia groups. They have to say that they're militia groups, they're creating civil unrest. But that's an excuse. If you only want to admit that it's a small section, if you look at the definition that we have as a global now, there's still the otherthorization harms that go on for millions and millions of women and girls and children. 

Sustainable development 16.2 is asking society to end, including the torture of children, the exploitation, and all the harms, including they say the torture of children. And I was on a webinar listening to experts and talking about 16.2. And not one of them ever spoke the word torture. They talked about everything else but the issue of torture. And they even had a woman on who spoke about being victimized when she was young, non-state tortured, and they didn't even acknowledge that. 

So we have a challenge to be comfortable with each other about speaking the truth. You know, it's not only institutional. The women who we support, they say to others, practice saying the word non-state torture.

We can get used to it. We can be comfortable with it. You know, if we talk about why it feels uncomfortable, what is it that we have to learn to be okay with it? And Sally, I think FiLiA is giving that opportunity, like you said, that there'll be like a 90-minute section to brainstorm and look at advocacy and look at solutions.

You know, so one of that solution may be how do we get comfortable with each other knowing that non-state torture happens? What is it that we can do? So that should be exciting for those attending FiLiA who want to learn to be okay and to know that, when we become okay with acknowledging that's what happens, then we are changing society because we're millions of women and working together. I do believe we have that opportunity. 

So, again, I wanted to thank you for all the work you're doing in order to give women that opportunity.

SALLY: And it reminds me in a sort of historical context, we didn't use to talk about child abuse. That's not something that you would mention. We didn't use to talk about domestic abuse. You couldn't talk about that in polite company. You wouldn't talk about sexual violence that you'd experienced. And, and over the years we've come to recognize that actually we need to talk about child abuse, we need to talk about domestic abuse, sexual violence, et cetera. And so my hope is as we move forward we recognize and we'll feel much more comfortable talking about non-state torture.

And as you said, Linda, really importantly, it's not until we start talking about it that those who are affected can start healing from it. And I know one of the things that you want to cover on your panel is that opportunity to heal and certainly your new book goes into that healing process as well.

Could you tell us a little bit about that? 

LINDA: Well, we're very proud of our work because, I mean, I get emotional when I think about it, but we slogged away in the dark. Ourselves, creating these theories and helping women and helping them heal, not really knowing. We believed they could heal. We believed that a hundred percent because we knew that about ourselves and we thought, well, I know, we know abuse is different, but it's still a violation that a woman should be able to heal from. But you never know for sure until they do. it is only a theory. 

But now we talk to women like Elizabeth, who she says she's healed and we have no reason to doubt her because she really followed the same process that we helped ourselves and it worked for her. And it's so thrilling to know it did work and it worked for the, another woman that we wrote our book about, and other women talk about the healing.

So we're really proud of the positive message that we're bringing. We know we're talking about a terrible crime, but we have a positive message and that is that women can heal from non-state torture. 

So we want to prevent it eventually, but at least if women know that they can heal from it, that should give them a lot of hope.

And the louder the message gets, the more hope it spreads. So that's what we're really hoping happens at FiLiA. The key to it is the fact that if you start to think of yourself as a survivor of a human rights violation and a crime versus mentally ill, that changes your brain immediately. And that's what we want.

That's what we bring to women is that it's not a mental illness. And yesterday I was listening to these people who had helped people heal from state torture, and they were talking about the DSM five and oh my God, I just think that book should be burned especially around torture.

And it just drives me crazy. 'cause Jean and I, and they talked about PTSD, you know, and that, so that's a disorder. None of this is about a disorder. It's all about the perpetrators creating great harm. So I thought of what, what if we call it normal torture response? That's what you have an NTR. A normal torture response. 

And you know, we just have to see how normal all these women are. And what do you expect from them? How do you expect women who've been tortured to act after their attacker has tried to destroy them with pleasure? You know, it creates extreme responses and so it should, until they're understood and cared about.

So caring is the essence of our work because we're both nurses. And we brought in a caring model and Jeanne’s model around relationship with self. She's got a brilliant model that she developed, so we're very proud of it and we hope that people at FiLiA will come and learn about it. 

SALLY: Thank you.

And you've kind of touched on it, but for those that are coming to FiLiA, and if they haven't bought their ticket yet, why not? Why would you miss it? But for those that know they're coming to FiLiA and you know, there's this panel around non-state torture, what would you say they may get out of attending that panel?

What's the benefits for them on, on attending and what might they learn? 

JEANNE: Well, for me, I think it would be that the person would leave comfortable. You know, if you can leave saying, okay, I got it, I got it, and we can do this. You know, we can stop the otherthorization harms. We can look at each other with dignity and respect, and for the perpetrators, hold them accountable for the crimes that they do.

You know, we focus on the victimization, which is necessary, but we have to equally hold the perpetrators to account. So I'm hoping that that's what people will leave with saying, okay, if I’m comfortable with the language, I'm gonna be comfortable with holding the perpetrators to account. I'll be comfortable with challenging the systems that have to hold the perpetrators to account, otherwise we're not going to heal globally.

So that, I think, coming to the sense of feeling, okay, that's a pretty big sense of freedom, I would say, 

LINDA: and I think you're gonna hear from six women who are very committed to knowing that non-state torture happens in the world. Jean and I are gonna be speaking Elizabeth, who I mentioned, who is a survivor, a woman who is healed from non-state torture, and she can talk about that.

Megan Walker, who's a feminist activist in Canada, who has success in the court system in our country, challenging our law against prostitution, where a judge acknowledged that torture happens in prostitution, and that was from the work that Jean and I and Megan did together, along with a survivor of prostitution. So that's a success. 

And then we have two lawyers, Marianne  Decuna and Lorraine Thoreau, and they're both lawyers, which is good. That's another success we have. We have lawyers standing with us now. 

Lorraine is talking about a case, a very important case of pack, a case in France where 50 women are insisting that they were tortured in pornography, and they won.

The judge tried to get the classification removed on their case around torture, and, and they won that, it would be included, and Marianna has written a powerful book about women's human rights based around migrant women, and she included a whole section on torture and non-state torture.

So we've got a wealth of knowledge that people can come and listen to us, not just Jean and I talking about this now, that's the positive.

 So, you know, we want people to know that there's success, as you said, it's growing. The success is growing, and they can take this back into their practice and use it wherever it fits for them

SALLY: Thank you. And before we finish you are always so busy, but I wonder what's next? What are your plans at the moment for both of you?

JEANNE: finishing the book, you know, we just got it back from the publisher and so we're in the final edits, so that's like a word for word for word review that we have to do.

We just had a publication around non-state torture conditioned, suicide Femicide that was just released. I mean, we've been talking about that for quite a number of years, but we keep pushing out. And it got released in the Peace Studies Journal. We submitted another article which the journal is taking.

A European Journal, it's about mainly about Lewin Siri. Which we used in our first book. That article is about how to use it to unfreeze people and refreeze in a new way of being gentle with oneself. So that explains the process because we know we have to break down the process to try to make some easy steps.

And from FiLiA we have connections going to Paris, France to work with migrant women there, and a lawyer that has an NGO that supports them. And then we're hoping to maybe make connection with others to think about what non-state torture might be. 

LINDA: Yeah, so, we're hoping to bring our new book with us to FiLiA.

We're hoping to have it in hand. We’re self-published so we don't have a way for the publisher to mail a lot of books. It's not as easy for us 'cause we self-fund, but we'll bring some and at least. hopefully women will be interested in it. And in Paris when we were working with activists and lawyers from different parts of France and they're wanting us to help them learn how we work to help women heal.

So there'll be a training session around how we work, which is really important. And also they want a strategy session around a group of lawyers around how they can use our work to integrate into their legal arguments. So that's pretty exciting. And then we're gonna have a cross country book launch of our book in Canada.

We're gonna stop off at different cities that are, we have a caucuss of support across our own country as well. And then of course, we're just gonna keep talking. We're gonna keep talking about non-state torture until we drop. That's just the future. 

SALLY: I have absolutely no doubt at all, and thank you so much for doing that.

And as lovely as it always is to chat to you virtually, I'm so looking forward to seeing you both in person in October. Thank you for the time you put in. And as you described, this is gonna be a phenomenal panel. I think. So much learning will come from it and I think one of the things that makes it so special in what you do is the work with the UN, there is the changing things on a global platform and also the very practical, what can we do to support this individual woman to heal and everything in between. So thank you both so much for your work. We really look forward to seeing you at FiLiA and take care. 

LINDA: Thank you Sally.

JEANNE: Thank you Sally. We look forward to seeing you too 

JEANNE: in person.