Torture victims in fund-raising dance event

Up to 200 torture victims will take part in a continuous 12-hour dance event today in Dublin.

Up to 200 torture victims will take part in a continuous 12-hour dance event today in Dublin.

The fund-raising event includes dance workshops led by professional dancers as well as performances by refugees who have attended the Centre for the Care of Survivors of Torture in Dublin, which has organised the day.

These clients will include Kirabo, who witnessed her husband being fatally shot in the head in front of her by state forces in her native African country, because of his political activities.

The name Kirabo means Gift in this 38-year-old's language. However, it is not her real name as she cannot reveal her identity for fear of reprisals against her six children whom she was forced to leave behind with her mother when she fled to Ireland to seek protection almost three years ago.

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Today, Kirabo will dance and sing a melancholic song about how in her lovely country people have suffered.

In her movements she will express the trauma of witnessing her husband's murder outside her house and the death threats which eventually forced her with a reluctant heart to leave behind her family.

She will articulate her loss of country and of loved ones and she will also convey through her body her attempts to move on through the counselling she has received at the Dublin centre, as well as her hopes for a future which will see her reunited in Ireland with her children.

"Sometimes after what we experience it is very hard for people to move on, so we wanted to do something to give people hope that things can be alright, that you don't have to live in the past all the time," she said.

The idea for today's "global groove" against torture came from the centre's clients, who felt a need to communicate their stories in this non-verbal and highly personal way on this their day, United Nations International Day in Support of Victims of Torture.