By Brian Atwood and Peter Fenn in Star & Stripes in 16 February, 2014.
An 18-year -old Free Syrian Army soldier was jailed in the fall of 2012, and Syrian government troops brought his fiancee, Sisters, Mother and female neighbors to the prison. But this wasn't a regular visitation, according to Women Under Siege, a group affiliated with the Women's Media Center. Each of these women was raped in front of the prisoner.
Sexual violence is a primary reason women and girls are fleeing Syria, according to the International Rescue Committee. It is not new for rape to be used as a weapon of war, nor for pregnancies to result from those rapes. As many as 50,000 women and girls were raped in Bosnia; more than 250,000 were raped in Rwanda. Reports from the Central African Republic, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and South Sudan indicate that rape is increasingly being used as a weapon in those war zones. This horrific act is designed to terrorize and paralyze whole segments of society.
An 18-year -old Free Syrian Army soldier was jailed in the fall of 2012, and Syrian government troops brought his fiancee, Sisters, Mother and female neighbors to the prison. But this wasn't a regular visitation, according to Women Under Siege, a group affiliated with the Women's Media Center. Each of these women was raped in front of the prisoner.
Sexual violence is a primary reason women and girls are fleeing Syria, according to the International Rescue Committee. It is not new for rape to be used as a weapon of war, nor for pregnancies to result from those rapes. As many as 50,000 women and girls were raped in Bosnia; more than 250,000 were raped in Rwanda. Reports from the Central African Republic, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and South Sudan indicate that rape is increasingly being used as a weapon in those war zones. This horrific act is designed to terrorize and paralyze whole segments of society.
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