A Syrian rights group said the government systematically uses various forms of sexual abuse to torture men into confessions and submission.
By Louisa Loveluck Louisa Loveluck Reporter in The Washington Post's Beirut bureau, focusing on Syria. Email Bio Follow March 11 at 10:35 AM BEIRUT — Syrian government forces are using widespread sexual violence to humiliate and silence male prisoners, psychologists and a monitoring group said Monday, offering a rare window into a form of abuse rarely discussed by its survivors.
According to a report released Monday by Lawyers and Doctors for Human Rights, a Syrian rights group, security forces have used rape and enforced sterilization, as well as the tying, burning and mutilation of men’s genitals, to force confessions and submission. But of 138 people interviewed by LDHR, more than 40 percent reported some form of sexual assault. That figure rose to almost 90 percent when describing instances of forced nudity ordered by their prison guards.
“These were moments when you didn’t recognize yourself as a human,” said one man, speaking on the condition of anonymity out of fear for his family’s security in government-held areas. “As I lay there, it wasn’t that I wanted to die. It was that I wished I’d never existed.” The legacy of sexual abuse can be devastating, and trauma can last years after release. More than three-quarters of the men interviewed described depression, flashbacks and nightmares since they left prison.
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