Shown in photo: CVT team at the early program in Guinea.
In 2025, the Center for Victims of Torture (CVT) commemorates 40 years of helping torture survivors rebuild their lives and restore their hope. In 1985, CVT set forth its mission to extend rehabilitative care to torture survivors in Minnesota, and over the years the work grew in the U.S. and internationally in locations where survivors lived. In addition, CVT began training professionals around the world in specialized rehabilitation practices and skills, as well as resilience and wellbeing skills needed to sustain difficult work, along policy advocacy for human rights and an end to torture.
In 40 years, CVT’s presence grew to include well-established clinics in Ethiopia, Iraq, Jordan, Kenya, Uganda and additional U.S. sites. Thousands of survivors of torture have come through our doors for specialized, intensive care services. These clients survived torture that was inflicted on them in 88 different countries.
“Those who came to our very first clinic in Minnesota 40 years ago included people who had suffered unspeakable horrors and lost everything, often simply because they opposed tyranny and injustice,” said Dr. Simon Adams, CVT president and CEO.
Our numbers show that up until January 2025, on average CVT touched the lives of 51,500 survivors, family members and partners every year through specialized, intensive services, trainings and support. In addition, through additional community-wide awareness raising activities, organizational development and training initiatives through partner networks and policy advocacy work, a few hundred thousand more lives were impacted each year.
Those who came to our very first clinic in Minnesota 40 years ago included people who had suffered unspeakable horrors and lost everything, often simply because they opposed tyranny and injustice.”
-Dr. Simon Adams, president & CEO
However, on January 24, 2025, just four days after Donald Trump was inaugurated to his second term as U.S. president, CVT began to receive notifications from the government, halting funding and stopping 75% of our overseas work. In just a matter of days, clinical staff were forced to tell stunned clients that their therapeutic care was ended. Within the next few weeks, more than 400 colleagues lost their jobs and the locations were closed.
Since that devastating time, CVT has made enormous strides, expanding care to survivors and support to local partners from Mexico, Myanmar and Syria, bringing in new sources of funding, developing innovative new programming and technology initiatives, and speaking up to global news media about impacts of funding cuts on survivors. CVT pushed back against the U.S. government, joining a lawsuit against the Trump administration challenging the halt of foreign aid funding. In these months, CVT, though much smaller than we were in January, has worked diligently to create a stronger, more sustainable and innovative organization.
The Center for Victims of Torture understands from our work with survivors, who have faced persecution and torture from the most dangerous regimes in the world, that it is our role to bear witness to their courage. “Torture is meant to silence. To erase identity. To instill fear so deep that it permeates across generations,” said Simon. “But for forty years we have stood in defiance of that fear. And for forty years the work of CVT has been to restore dignity, healing and hope to those who have survived the unimaginable, and endured the unthinkable.”
We celebrate our 40 years and look forward to 40 more, always with an eye to supporting as many survivors as possible.
A First for the United States: The Early Days at CVT
The Center for Victims of Torture’s story began with a question. The son of then-Minnesota Governor Rudy Perpich asked: What are you doing about human rights? The governor took the question to heart and set up a task force to do research on action for human rights that could be done in Minnesota but on a scale that would reach beyond the state. As part of their research, the task force visited Dignity, the Danish torture survivor rehabilitation center that was the first such center in the world. Impressed by the work they saw in Copenhagen, the task force began the process to establish a center in Minnesota.
On May 14, 1985, the Center for Victims of Torture filed articles of incorporation as an independent nongovernmental organization.
The early days at CVT were full of ideas and enthusiasm from the task force and board members who got the work started. On October 31, 1985, the board met and discussed what name to give the organization, particularly on whether or not to have the word “torture” in the name. Ultimately, the group felt that including the word was an approach that would facilitate consciousness raising. By February 1987, the name Center for Victims of Torture had been formally chosen.
One of the first therapists at CVT was Dr. Rosa Garcia-Peltoniemi, who served for many years as senior consulting clinician. “There was then no such thing as a one treatment fits all, nor is there now,” she said of that early work with survivors of torture. She appreciated the multi-disciplinary approach to care that was implemented even as the center was just getting started. She said, “I was also convinced that for rehabilitative treatment to be successful it needed to offer assistance from several disciplines, including those that make access to social services and employment possible, along with strong and determined support from the community.”
There was then no such thing as a one treatment fits all, nor is there now.”
-Dr. Rosa Garcia-Peltoniemi, former CVT senior consulting clinician
The early days were lean – CVT had a 1989 annual budget of only $335,000 – but very active. The CVT team and clients benefited from being located first in a small house on the university campus, followed by a move to a larger house on River Road. Operating from locations and buildings that are less institutional and more welcoming was important for clients. This became a preference for CVT locations globally, a trauma-informed practice that also helps break down stigma against mental health as clients walk into a house or tukul, rather than going to a hospital or institution.
The small CVT team at that time was close and worked across departments frequently. “When I began at CVT in 1998, we didn’t have many staff – we held our staff meetings in the living room of the house where CVT resided. And when I left CVT in 2023, our staff meetings included CVT colleagues located in clinics throughout the world,” said Ruth Barrett, former CVT vice president of global operations. “We became over that span of time a truly global organization and a force in the world of human rights, mental health, policy, research and training.”
When I began at CVT in 1998, we didn’t have many staff – we held our staff meetings in the living room of the house where CVT resided.”
-Ruth Barrett, former CVT vice president of global operations
In 1988, CVT hired Douglas A. Johnson as executive director, a position he held for 23 years. Doug brought not only a compassionate heart but a strong sense of the importance of justice as a part of healing after torture. He took the charter created by the original task force and began working on key initiatives beyond direct healing care. The four areas of work for the center included healing survivors, research on effective methods, training to develop the capacity of other global clinicians, and efforts to stop torture.
Doug noted there were obstacles to taking on multi-faceted work: “It was kind of shocking to me how little resonance the work of the center had with some of the major human rights groups,” he said, noting that there was a perception that medical and healing work would take more than its fair share of funding. “What disturbed me was the inability to think about this as a new kind of tool and something that could broaden the constituency of the human rights movement.”
So Doug started working on an idea for tactical innovation, researching successes by advocates. By 1996, he launched the New Tactics in Human Rights project to promote tactical innovation and enhanced strategic thinking within the international human rights community. Today, that program works with activists around the world.
Growing Global Interest in Supporting Victims of Torture
Five months before CVT was incorporated, the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (CaT), was adopted by the United Nations General Assembly. This brought global attention to the fact that torture was used around the world, and efforts began to bring accountability to perpetrators, and protection and redress for victims. This also allowed funding to become available.
President Reagan signed the Convention against Torture in 1988, and by 1994, the initial Torture Victims Relief Act was introduced by U.S. Senator David Durenberger of Minnesota. After bipartisan approval by Congress, this law opened the doors for federal funding for torture treatment centers in the U.S., as well as increasing the contribution made by the U.S. to the UN Voluntary Fund for Victims of Torture.
This made a difference for CVT. In 1995, U.S. Senator Rod Grams visited the center, a meeting that was scheduled for two hours but extended to four once he began to learn about how survivors were impacted so positively by care. “He told his aides to clear his schedule because it was more important that he be at CVT,” said Pete Dross, former vice president of external relations. Grams asked what he could do to help, and Pete asked him to take the Torture Victims Relief Act over the finish line in the Senate. He said “I can do that. What else can I do?” So they also asked him to help get a key amendment attached to a State Department bill that would ban the transfer of detainees to countries that are known to use torture. Grams said he could do that. “And he did,” Pete said.
He told his aides to clear his schedule because it was more important that he be at CVT.”
-Pete Dross, former CVT vice president of external relations, on a key visit from Senator Grams
At the United Nations, interest was also growing. In 1998, the first UN International Day in Support of Victims was held, a global day of recognition. This key date prompted UN Secretary General Kofi Annan to visit CVT, along with Senators Rod Grams and Paul Wellstone. Annan told the audience gathered in the Minneapolis house, “Now I know where to send people if they want to learn how to deal with this problem.”
Shown in photo: Sen. Rod Grams, UN Sec. General Kofi Annan, Sen. Paul Wellstone
CVT’s work to build capacity and skills for providers who care for survivors also moved ahead in these years, and by 1998 CVT hosted a meeting of U.S. torture survivor centers. This was the beginning of the National Consortium of Torture Treatment Programs, a group that to this day shares expertise and networks to provide comprehensive care to survivors living in the U.S.
