Urgent action for Syrian women

The Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Network (EMHRN) is watching with mounting concern and dismays the serious violations of women’s and girls’ rights in Syria, especially those who have been displaced inside the country and sought refuge in neighbouring countries.

Human rights activists, both male and female, have reported stories of Syrian women including under-age girls (both in Syria and in refugee camps) being subjected to rape, forced or “pleasure” marriages, and “honour” crimes committed in the wake of sexual violence after imprisonment and torture in Syrian jails. These crimes are greeted with the most deafening silence from the Syrian state, neighbouring countries and international institutions. They are perpetrated chiefly by the Syrian army and intelligence services, but also by armed groups and nationals of different countries coming to “buy” young girls from refugee camps. Girl children and women of all ages are suffering abuse, ranging from rejection through kidnapping to murder. Human rights defenders are a particular target.

These atrocities are made worse by the extremely precarious conditions of women who are often left to raise their children alone (with husbands, fathers and brothers either imprisoned, disappeared or dead). They have nothing: no health care, medicine, food, water, electricity, no form of treatment to prevent unwanted pregnancies or diseases transmitted as a result of sexual violence.

Deeply alarmed by this situation, the Euro-Mediterranean Network for Human Rights condemns violence against women whatever the circumstances. EMHRN calls for a halt to violence and sexual abuse against women and children, especially young girls, in armed conflict and in refugee camps.

EMHRN demands that Syria, and countries taking in Syrian women refugees, put their international human rights undertakings into practice. It calls on the international community to enforce the UN resolutions, in particular UN Declaration on the Elimination of Violence against Women of 20 December 1993, the UN Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) of 18 December 1979 and its Optional Protocol, and the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child of 20 November 1989[1].

EMHRN urges Syria, the states concerned and the international community to make every effort to end the Syrian conflict and initiate steps to:

• put an end to the serious, repeated violations of Syrian women and girls;
• take urgent action to permanently improve the humanitarian and economic situation of refugee and displaced women and children;

EMHRN emphasizes that all states have a responsibility to see that the necessary investigations are carried out into these violations and to end impunity. The perpetrators of these crimes of sexual violence against women and girls including rape, sexual abuse and forced marriages must be held to account.

EMHRN wants women who are or have been victims of violence to be able to bring proceedings in the courts or the International Criminal Court in conditions that respect their dignity and for their protection to be guaranteed.

Finally, EMHRN calls for resources to be deployed in implementing programmes for rebuilding the lives and the economic, social and psychological rehabilitation of survivors of violence, especially young girls.