Multiple sources confirm rape and torture of 14-year-old girl in private house

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A hospital administrator in southern Turkey told WMC’s Women Under Siege about a 14-year-old girl who was treated at the hospital for rape and torture at the hands of eight shabiha (plainclothes militia) members in Idlib in December 2012.

The girl was held in the basement of a private house for seven or eight days, according to the administrator, who said that signs of sexual assault on the girl were “very clear” and that she had lesions on her vagina. He said men had ejaculated on her and that she was raped; she had cigarette burns on her body and black eyes when she arrived at the hospital. The men, the girl told the hospital, used hot metal rods to burn her arms, legs, and thighs. She also said that she was forced to witness two people executed in front of her.

“She gets very agitated every time she tells her story,” the administrator said, adding that the UN Commission of Inquiry on Syria had documented her case previously.

According to the UN COI report, the girl “was abducted by four men, two of whom were in uniform, and held a building in Idlib by people she described as ‘Shiites from her neighborhood.’ She was interrogated about her mother’s work with the FSA. Her treatment — which included her being raped — is detailed in document A/HRC/22/59, annex IX. She described being beaten, burnt with cigarettes and injected with an unknown substance. In interview, her doctor stated that she had injuries highly consistent with her account.”

The extended UN COI account says: “She was denied food and water for extended periods of time. On the fifth day of her detention, four young men were brought into the room where they raped her. Two days later, she was released. Her father took her to a gynecologist outside Syria. … This 14-year-old girl has tried to commit suicide three times, saying, ‘My life has no value. I lost everything, what has gone will never come back.’”

Raiefa Sammei, who works in the executive office for the Local Administration Council for the City of Idlib, told WMC’s Women Under Siege that she had spoken with the girl’s mother, who confirmed many of these details, and that the house where the girl was held is a known location used for rape for at least the past seven months. Sammei said there are “at least two to three girls held there at any time.”

The girl was smuggled out of the house by a woman who served the men tea and coffee and took pity on her, Sammei said. She added that the girl was forced to perform oral sex on the men. According to the activist, the girl has had a “breakdown” since leaving the house.

(See https://womenundersiegesyria.crowdmap.com/reports/view/217 for another report involving the same private house in Idlib.)

The exact dates of this reported case of sexualized violence are unknown.