Default title

Commission on Human Rights
58th session
16 April 2002




Statement by Mr. Ivan Tosevski,
Member of the Board of Trustees of
the United Nations Voluntary Fund
for Victims of Torture



I thank you, Mr. Chairman, for giving me this opportunity to address the Commission on behalf of the Board of Trustees of the United Nations Voluntary Fund for Victims of Torture. The Commission has before it the main report by the Secretary-General on the status of the Fund, submitted to the last session of the General Assembly (A/56/181), as well as updated information submitted by the Secretary-General to the present session of the Commission in document E/CN.4/2002/66.

The Board of Trustees of this Fund meets in May. The Board makes recommendations for grants only on the basis of contributions officially registered by the United Nations Treasurer as available in the Fund on the eve of the session. Donors are therefore invited by the General Assembly and the Commission, in their resolutions on torture, to contribute well in advance of the annual session so that their contributions can be duly registered and used during the current year. Last year, the Commission, in its resolution 2001/62, appealed to all Governments, organizations and individuals to contribute annually to the Fund, if possible with a substantial increase in the contributions, in order to take into consideration the ever-increasing request for assistance.

About 260 new requests have been received this year to finance medical, psychological, economic, social, legal, humanitarian and other forms of assistance to victims of torture and members of their families. These requests amount to about US$12 million. However, according to information available at the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, as at today new voluntary contributions amounting to about US$1,4 million only have been paid to the Fund. Therefore, if all the requests received were to be satisfied an additional amount of US$10.6 million would still be be needed.

As of today, a total of about US$6,2 million has been pledged to by the Governments of Brazil, Bulgaria, Chile, Cyprus, Germany, Ireland, Monaco, the Netherlands, Tunisia, Turkey, the United States of America and Venezuela. The Board, at its annual session, from 13 to 27 May 2002, will only be able to consider the contributions paid and duly registered by the United Nations Treasurer, not pledges. Contributions paid after 30 April 2002 could therefore only be taken into consideration in the year 2003. I therefore highly encourage the donors who pledged a contribution and other regular donors to pay their contributions before the end of the present session of the Commission. I also invite new donors to contribute. An information meeting with interested donors and the Board will be held during its annual session, on 27 May 2002, to provide more information to the donors.

I thank you very much.