WUNRN
Human Rights Watch
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SYRIA - RIGHTS GROUP REPORTS SEX
ASSAULTS BY SYRIAN TROOPS
By
Dominique Soguel - WeNews Correspondent - June 18, 2012
Assad's military and pro-government militias are said to be regularly using sexual violence against men, women and children with impunity during the current Syrian conflict.
Relief effort for Syrian refugees on the Syria-Lebanon
border.
Credit: Mustafa Öztürk on IHH Humanitarian Relief
Foundation/TURKEY's Flickr page, under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0).
(WOMENSENEWS)--Forces
loyal to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad are using sexual violence against
men, women and children in detention and during raids in opposition
strongholds, Human Rights Watch said in a report on Friday.
"Sexual
violence in detention is one of many horrific weapons in the Syrian
government's torture arsenal," said Sarah Leah Whitson, the organization's
She
added that, "The assaults are not limited to detention facilities --
government forces and pro-government shabiha militia members have also sexually
assaulted women and girls during home raids and residential sweeps."
In the
report, the organization said soldiers and pro-government armed militias --
locally known as shabiha -- have also sexually abused women and girls as young
as 12 during military sweeps of residential areas.
The report
is based on interviews with former detainees, sexual violence survivors,
defectors from the Syrian security forces and the army, first responders,
women's rights activists and family members.
Much of
the research on sexual violence in
One group
trying to document the sexual abuse in the country is Women Under Siege, which was
spearheaded by Gloria Steinem. The organization's website uses crowd-mapping to track
Syrian reports of rape and other forms of sexual abuse.
The
women's organization draws on a wide range of testimonies, including fathers
speaking out for their daughters, doctors for their patients and confessions of
former soldiers.
The Syrian
government tightly restricts access to journalists, researchers and aid
workers, making such reports extremely difficult to verify.
"It's
a sinkhole of fact checking," wrote Women Under Siege Director Lauren
Wolfe along with
Hashem
Marwa, head of the legal affairs office of the Syrian National Council, an
opposition coalition based in
"We
think the numbers are in the hundreds," he said.
Human
Rights Watch said in its recent report that it had documented over 20 specific
incidents of sexual assault across
The
majority of cases were in the
One
defector, Toufiq, reported that one of his friends in the security forces
admitted to taking part in a gang rape of two women detained during a
residential sweep in
Walid, who
defected from the riot police, is quoted in the report as saying that officers
bragged about raping women during raids in the city of
"[One
officer] joked that during that house raid, 'When I fucked the woman, she made
a lot of noise because I must have pleased her so much,'" the report
quoted him as saying.
The
organization also quotes Maha, from Daraa, saying that in February Syrian
government forces and shabiha raided her house, looking for her husband and
threatened rape her if she failed to turn him in.
"He
tore my shirt and started grabbing my breasts. The one who grabbed me looked
like shabiha -- he was wearing civilian clothes. The person in charge was
outside," she said.
A man
dressed in green, "clearly from the army" entered the room. "The
officer said to tell her that if her husband doesn't turn himself in . . . she
will see worse than this," the report quoted the woman as saying.
No
evidence was found by the organization of high-ranking officers commanding
their troops to commit sexual violence during home searches, ground operations
or in detention. But the report noted that such acts enjoy complete impunity.
Moreover,
many of the reported assaults were in circumstances in which commanding
officers knew or should have known crimes were taking place -- for example,
regular acts of sexual violence in detention centers.
Violence
in detention centers ranged from sexual abuse, including rape, penetration with
objects, sexual groping and prolonged forced nudity, to electroshock and
beatings to the genitalia, the watchdog organization said.
"The
full extent of sexual violence in and outside of detention facilities remains unknown,"
the report said, noting that shame, social stigma and fear of so-called honor
killings keep most victims silent.
A key
issue is that Syrian survivors of sexual assault lack access to medical or
psychological treatment, both in their home countries and neighboring states
such as
It urged
the international community to take steps to make perpetrators of sexual and
other violence liable, including referring
"The
international community urgently needs to address the human rights violations
going on in
"The
Security Council should send a strong signal to the Assad government that they
will be held accountable for sexual violence and other human rights violations
-- by referring the situation to the International Criminal Court," she
added.