Short answers, pulled from the story.
Torture is defined as the deliberate infliction of severe pain for specific reasons such as punishment or extracting information. Legal systems often restrict this label to acts carried out by state actors, though some definitions include non-state groups.
Archaeological evidence places torture in Early Neolithic Europe approximately 7,000 years ago. The practice declined in Europe during the seventeenth century before its formal abolition in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries.
Most victims are poor and marginalized people suspected of crimes, including unemployed young men, urban poor, LGBT people, refugees, migrants, ethnic minorities, indigenous people, and those with disabilities. Political prisoners receive disproportionate attention while survivors from these populations are often unwilling to report their experiences.
Fear frequently motivates torturers rather than sadism, and they often see their actions as serving a higher political goal justifying the means. Studies do not support the assumption that torturers are psychologically pathological, noting instead that many rely on coping mechanisms like alcohol or drugs.
The United Nations drew up the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights following shock by Nazi atrocities during World War II. This document prohibited torture and stimulated the creation of the human rights movement leading to the United Nations Convention against Torture in 1984.
An average of 40 percent suffer long-term post-traumatic stress disorder at higher rates than any other trauma. Survivors often experience social and financial problems including housing insecurity and family separation alongside chronic pain and pain-related disability.