WUNRN
Human Rights Watch - http://www.hrw.org/reports/2014/07/02/we-are-still-here
WOMEN ON THE FRONT LINES OF SYRIA'S CONFLICT
Direct Link to Full 27-Page 2014
Human Rights Watch Report:
This
47-page report profiles 17 Syrian women who are now refugees in Turkey. Through
written and photographic portraits, the report documents ways in which the
conflict impacts women in particular.
Women
profiled in the report experienced violations by government and pro-government
forces as well as by armed groups opposed to the government such as
Liwa’al-Islam and extremist groups like the Islamic State of Iraq and Sham
(ISIS). Some female activists and humanitarian aid providers said they had been
threatened, arbitrarily arrested and detained, and tortured by government or
armed opposition forces. All six former detainees profiled in the report
experienced physical abuse or torture in detention; one woman was sexually
assaulted multiple times. Other women said they had been victims of
discriminatory restrictions on their dress and movement. Several women were
injured or lost family members in indiscriminate attacks on civilians by
government forces.
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Foreign Policy in Focus
Website Link Includes PHOTOS of the
Women Profiled.
Meet five women who are bearing the burden of conflict in
From the initial uprisings against the government of Bashar
al-Assad in spring 2011, women in Syria have organized and participated in
peaceful demonstrations and provided vital humanitarian assistance to those in
need. Like their male counterparts, Syrian women who take part in protests or
provide aid are targets of abuse, harassment, detention, and even torture by
government forces and some armed groups opposed to the government.
At the same time, general insecurity and discriminatory
restrictions imposed by some armed groups opposed to the government have
curtailed women’s dress and freedom of movement. Many women have become de facto household heads,
both inside Syria and in refugee settings, when male family members have been
killed, detained, forcibly disappeared, injured, disabled, or unable to find
steady employment.
Recognizing women’s multiple and significant roles—and their
experiences as both participants and victims—is critical to developing
appropriate responses to women’s needs inside
Maisa
In early 2012, Maisa, a 30-year-old intensive care nurse from
“I felt like my life was threatened all the time because the
regime didn’t permit anyone to treat people from the opposition,” she said.
Government forces searched for her repeatedly: “They would say, ‘We are keeping
our eyes on you.’”
She started a small organization to support women’s rights and
local political participation. She soon began interviewing activists on a
pro-opposition satellite TV station. “I hid my face under a veil and used a
different name so the regime wouldn’t know it was me,” she said.
But she said another activist revealed her identity under
torture, and government security forces detained her at a
They eventually took her to a police station, where men in
police uniforms sexually harassed and tortured other female detainees. She saw
one woman, handcuffed and naked, alone in a cell. “Once they brought her to our
cell and made her beat the other women. Her body was defaced. It was all blue,”
Maisa said. She was held there for four months.
“I never got to talk to anyone in my family. I never got a
lawyer,” she said, and laughed at the suggestion that it would have been a
possibility. Maisa said that at one detention facility, the security forces fed
criminal detainees but not political ones. “To get food or make phone calls,
some women would have sex with the policemen,” Maisa said.
After five months, Maisa was taken to counterterrorism court,
where the judge upheld her detention. A month later she was freed in a prisoner
swap. Maisa resumed her activism, but when government forces arrested fellow
activists and started following her again, she made her way to
Upon her release, she learned that members of ISIS had detained
her sister, Samar, in
Maha
“For three months, I had a feeling that one of us was going to
die,” said Maha, now 28, a former first grade teacher from
In November 2012, they went to a Friday demonstration; Maha
(left, with sister Nuha) said the participants were civilian activists and
community members. Afterward, as she and her friends stood chatting in front of
the mosque, government forces shelled the area.“I felt something falling above
me and I started to run. I turned back and saw dust,” Maha said. “I looked for
Mustafa. … I couldn’t find him.”
“I went to the hospital. I saw a child without legs. I saw every
kind of injury.” Eventually doctors told her that Mustafa died during surgery,
one of 13 who died that day.
Maha left
For now, Maha works from
Amal
“My only remaining child is my son,” said Amal, 44, pointing to
the 10-year-old sitting by her side. Her four other children—ages 4, 7, 14, and
17—were at home in
Until then, Amal’s family had felt relatively safe. Their
neighborhood was under government control and, she said, no armed groups were
near their home.
“We saw the helicopter. We saw when the barrel was thrown out,”
she said. “At first I thought they were throwing food to the regime troops.”
Shortly after the bombing, Amal’s husband, a shopkeeper,
suffered a heart attack and stroke that left him partially paralyzed. The
family had moved to the opposition-controlled area of
They left for
Nayla
Nayla, 52, a teacher from Daraa, and a male friend were
transporting a military defector to
The soldiers took all three to a detention facility in
After two hours, the officers took Nayla to a solitary cell,
approximately 1 by 1.5 meters. For two days, she was interrogated and denied
food and water. “There were insects like you can’t imagine,” she said. “I
started to scratch myself until my skin bled.”
On the third day, officers brought Nayla to a cell with other
women and girls. Through a small window in the door, Nayla saw men who she said
appeared to have been tortured. She saw a young man crawling on the floor, his
feet so blue and swollen from beatings that he could not walk. “You can’t
imagine—day and night, the screaming, the crying, the beating,” she said.
After nearly seven months in detention, Nayla went before a
military court on charges of assisting activists, anti-government fighters, and
foreign governments. The judge found her innocent but referred her to a
civilian court, where a judge released her. She said of her imprisonment and
subsequent release: “You feel you will never be free again—that you will never
see your family, never go to [a proper] toilet.”
Berivan
“When the revolution started, it was what we had been waiting
for,” said Berivan, 24. An English literature student at
In November 2012, as the conflict grew, she moved to the Yarmouk
refugee camp in south
But after nearly a year, in September 2013, extremist armed
opposition groups expanded their presence in the camp. Members of the group
Liwa’ al-Islam detained Berivan, accusing her of providing medical treatment to
men, not wearing a headscarf, and being a government spy. They called her kafir, a derogatory term
used by Muslims for a non-believer. After several days, the group admitted they
had no evidence against Berivan but continued to detain her. They freed her
after 10 days, most of which she spent on a hunger strike.
Wearing a headscarf as a precaution, she re-opened the pharmacy
in Yarmouk. But then fighters of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS)
forced her to close it, threatening her because she wasn’t wearing a
full-length abaya.
“If we ever see you in this area, we will hang you,” they told her.
Wanted by both the armed Islamist groups and by government
forces for providing humanitarian assistance in the camp, she fled to
For Berivan, being in Yarmouk was a choice. “The problem is
there are lots of people still there and it is not their decision,” she said of
those trapped in besieged areas. She emphasized the strength of women in the
community. “They are strong, and they are fighting. They are suffering. They
don’t want to leave.”
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