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Women detained and tortured illegally in Iraq

March 22, 2014 at 12:11 pm

Thousands of Iraqi women have been illegally detained, tortured and sexually abused by Iraqi authorities, Human Rights Watch (HRW) said.

The watchdog’s report said: “Iraq’s weak judiciary, plagued by corruption, frequently bases convictions on coerced confessions and trial proceedings fall far short of international standards. Many women were detained for months or even years without charge before seeing a judge.”


HRW’s research included interviews with women and girls, Sunni and Shia, their families and other officials, including lawyers, medical service providers in prisons and UN staff in Baghdad. “We also reviewed court documents, lawyers’ case files and government decisions and reports,” they said.

In total 27 women and seven girls were interviewed who said the authorities have subjected them to various forms of abuse including “assaults, beatings, slapping and holding them up by the feet, electrocution, rape or threats of sexual assault by security forces during interrogation.”

The former detainees said: “The security forces interrogated us on the activities of our male relatives and not on crimes we were involved in. They forced us to sign and fingerprint confessions we did not or could not read.”

The organisation has released its findings in a 105 page report on Thursday entitled “No One Is Safe: Abuses of Women in Iraq’s Criminal Justice System”.

HRW Deputy Middle East and North Africa Director Joe Stork said: “Iraqi security forces and officials act as if brutally abusing women will make the country safer. In fact, these women and their relatives have told us that as long as security forces abuse people with impunity, we can only expect security conditions to worsen.”

In January 2013 Prime Minister Nouri Al-Maliki announced that he would task Deputy Prime Minister Hussein Al-Shahristani with overseeing reforms to the criminal justice system. But a year later, the government has not made desperately needed changes and the justice system remains plagued by corruption and abuses against women from all sects, classes, and regions; the report said.

Iraq’s predominantly Sunni-populated areas have seen continued protests for nearly a year now most notably in the Anbar province against violations of their rights, most notably Article IV entitled the “Counterterrorism Act”. The protestors demand the act be repealed and detainees, especially women, be released.

The New York based organisation quoted several Anbar residents who said they were “frustrated with Al-Maliki’s failure to carry out his promised reforms. The people do not trust the security forces because of their continued attacks against Sunni areas and their abuses against the women which undermines the government’s efforts against Al-Qaeda in Anbar”.

The Anbar province; 110km west of Baghdad has seen sporadic clashes between clan rebels and army forces which are trying to enter the cities of Ramadi and Fallujah .The clashes erupted following the arrest of MP Ahmad Al-Alwani and the murder of his brother on December 28 last year.