From Africa to America with trauma and after

Double Life: The Public Face and Private Pain of Torture Victims in Minnesota
by: Abdi Aynte
Sat Oct 27, 2007 at 5:44:46 PM

Like many other torture victims, Iftu has a dual identity: In public, she's a happy and hard-working immigrant whose gregarious outlook doesn't give a hint of the horrors she suffered in her native Ethiopia. In private, she's a rape victim and a patient at a local psychological treatment center.

"It's getting harder and harder to keep up with my two identities," said Iftu, who didn't want to give her last name.

She's one of an estimated half million torture victims in the United States. Minnesota has an estimated 30,000. That number is too high for the state because of higher immigration rate per capita, said Rosa Garcia-Peltoniemi, a senior consulting clinician with The Center for Victims of Torture, or CVT. The Minneapolis-based center is a national leader in the field.

Speaking at an immigrant roundtable Friday, Garcia-Peltoniemi said "the stigma associated with torture is a barrier to treatment," but is common.
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