The Use of Sexual Violence as a Weapon in Syria’s Civil War: How the United Nations Address this Human Rights Violation Issue to Support the Victims?
Since the civil war in Syria began in 2011, more than 465,000 Syrians have been killed and around 1 million people have been injured along with 12 million people displaced (Erickson, 2018). But beside the war, there is also a pattern of the use of rape and other forms of sexual violence during the war which constitutes war crimes and crimes against humanity. United Nations Human Rights Council stated that parties to the Syrian conflict have subjected thousands of women, girls, men, and boys to sexual and gender-based violence (OHCHR, 2018).
Under the Bashar al-Assad’s regime, The Syrian government forces and its allied militias have used rape and sexual violence against, girls, women, and men as a weapon of war (Selby, 2018). According to the report of the International Commission of Inquiry, detailed that conflict-related sexual violence also committed by armed and terrorist groups such as Jabhat Fatah al-Sham and the so-called Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL/Da’esh) (United Nations, 2018).
Since the uprising an earlier year of the conflict in 2011, government forces arrested and arbitrarily detained thousands of protestors both male and female. During detention, male officers subjected women to intimate and humiliating body searches while raped them during interrogations (OHCHR, 2018). Syrian women were often repeatedly raped for “crimes” such as participating in peaceful demonstrations or to send a message to their husbands, fathers, and brothers (Al Jazeera, 2018). Even more, men also experience sexual violations horribly. They were forced to have intercourse with one another and with other relatives, gang-raped or with objects and things which cause the loss of masculinity, becoming impotent having some really serious consequences of illness and incontinence (Stephanie, 2018)
Those actions of sexual violence used as a weapon or tool to punish communities that support opposition forces, as a torture tactic, humiliate its perceived enemies and a means of getting more information or intimidate the victims into giving confessions (OHCHR, 2018). Syrian government forces raped civilians during house searches and ground operations in the early stages of the conflict, and later at checkpoints and detention facilities (Stephanie, 2018). The United Nations war crimes investigators reported that most rapes took place in Aleppo, Deraa, Homs, Hama, and Damascus, as well as Sednaya military prison and the air force intelligence branch at Mezzeh military airport, both near the capital (Nebehay, 2018).
But how are the victims of sexual violence after those cruel actions happened to them? Those victims suffered shame, depression, incontinence, impotence and miscarriages, and rejection by their families (Stephanie, 2018). Those tragic incidents that they have experienced are things they will never forget. They experience the external pressure which the dread of the ongoing war but moreover they also get internal pressure towards their acts of sexual violence experiences. Even several interviewees said that is worse for them as a woman to be raped than to be killed (Erickson A. , 2018). Karen AbuZayd, an American commissioner stated that there were a number of women and girls sometimes commit suicide due to the verbal abuse they suffered in their homes or communities (Stephanie, 2018).
The gathering of the International leaders at United Nations Headquarters in New York on 18th of September 2017 as a United Nations response of this issue and to call for urgent action to support survivors of these abuses, and to prevent these violations from happening in the first place (UNFPA, 2017). In fact, Justice Rapid Response (JRR) and UN Women have deployed sexual and gender-based violence (SGBV) experts in support of the work of the UN Commission of Inquiry for Syria, the Office of the High-Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) fact-finding mission, and other justice mechanisms, to ensure that sexual and gender-based crimes in Syria are documented and prosecuted (UN Women, 2017).
In addition, various services and concrete actions directly implemented by the United Nation toward the victims by providing clinical management of rape and psychosocial counseling to help restore the long-term condition of victims. Moreover, victims also need help to integrate themselves back into their communities where they are excluded considering their sexual violence experienced. The process is in the form of education and livelihood training to help those who lose learning opportunities. UN Population Fund (UNFPA) and its partners are working to provide a full range of support to survivors in humanitarian settings by helping the victims to secure justice through legal assistance and other efforts to end impunity (UNFPA, 2017). Lise Grande, Deputy Special Representative of the Secretary-General and UN Resident Coordinator and Humanitarian Coordinator stated that they have established more than 120 safe space which helped hundreds of thousands of girls (UNFPA, 2017).
United Nations are actually done effective efforts in term of helping the victims of sexual violation in Syrian war through documented and prosecuted the sexual crimes, provide clinical management of rape and psychosocial counseling and serve legal assistance to end impunity. But the United Nations is still unable to prevent, overcome and end the use of sexual violence as a weapon in the Syrian war. In addition, cooperation from world leaders is also needed to work together to be able to stop this long-term human rights violation issue, because many innocent people especially children deserve justice and better hopes to live their life without being overshadowed by fear of their terrible experiences.
Bibliography
Al Jazeera. (2018, June 11). Silent War: How Rape Became a Weapon in Syria. Retrieved from Al Jazeera: https://www.aljazeera.com/programmes/witness/2018/06/silent-war-rape-weapon-syria-180611071447939.html
Erickson, A. (2018, March 16). ‘I screamed, but no one came’: The horrifying sexual violence facing Syria’s women and girls. Retrieved from The Washington Post: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2018/03/16/i-screamed-but-no-one-came-the-horrifying-sexual-violence-facing-syrias-girls/?utm_term=.b95ab41d5cc9
Erickson, A. (2018, December 18). 7 basic questions about the war in Syria. Retrieved from The Washington Post: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2018/04/12/syria-explained/?utm_term=.0eb939815f83
Nebehay, S. (2018, March 15). Rape used as wide-scale weapon of war in Syria — U.N. report. Retrieved from United Kingdom Reuters: https://uk.reuters.com/article/mideast-crisis-syria-warcrimes-sexual/rape-used-as-wide-scale-weapon-of-war-in-syria-u-n-report-idUSL8N1QX30X
OHCHR. (2018). UN Commission of Inquiry on Syria: Sexual and gender-based violence against women, girls, men, and boys a devastating and pervasive feature of the conflict and must end now. Geneva: Human Right Council .
Selby, D. (2018, March 15). In Syria’s Civil War, Rape Has Been Used As a Weapon Against Men, Women, and Children. Retrieved from Global Citizen: https://www.globalcitizen.org/en/content/syria-civil-war-refugee-un-rape-sexual-violence/
Stephanie, N. (2018, March 15). Thousands of women, men, children raped in Syria’s war: U.N. report. Retrieved from Reuters: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-mideast-crisis-syria-warcrimes-sexual/thousands-of-women-men-children-raped-in-syrias-war-u-n-report-idUSKCN1GR1PZ
UN Women. (2017, October 26). Investigating conflict-related sexual and gender-based crimes — lessons from Iraq and Syria. Retrieved from UN Women: http://www.unwomen.org/en/news/stories/2017/10/news-event-wps-investigating-conflict-related-sexual-and-gender-based-crimes
UNFPA. (2017, September 20). Leaders at United Nations address sexual violence as a weapon of war. Retrieved from United Nations Population Fund: https://www.unfpa.org/news/leaders-united-nations-address-sexual-violence-weapon-war
United Nations. (2018). UN Special Representative on Sexual Violence in Conflict, Pramila Patten, Condemns the Use of Rape and Other Forms of Conflict-Related Sexual Violence Committed in Syria. New York: United Nations.
