War Means Sexualized Violence Against Women

SEXUALIZED VIOLENCE AGAINST IRAQI WOMEN
BY
US OCCUPYING FORCES
A Briefing Paper
OF
INTERNATIONAL EDUCATIONAL DEVELOPMENT
Prepared by
Kristen McNutt, Researcher, Association of Humanitarian Lawyers
Presented to
The United Nations
Commission on Human Rights
2005 Session
March
Geneva

Contact: ied@igc.org

Iraqi female detainees have been illegally detained, raped and sexually violated by United States military personnel. Women who stay at home in traditional roles are more likely to be imprisoned as bargaining chips by US troops seeking to pressurize male relatives, according to the New Statesmen (UK)<1>. In December 2003, a woman prisoner, “Noor”, smuggled out a note stating that US guards at Abu Ghraib had been raping women detainees and forcing them to strip naked. Several of the women were now pregnant.<2> The classified enquiry launched by the US military, headed by Major General Antonio Taguba, has confirmed the note by “Noor” and that sexual violence against women at Abu Ghraib took place. Among the 1,800 digital photographs taken by US guards inside Abu Ghraib there were, according to Taguba's report, images of naked male and female detainees; a male Military Police guard “having sex” with a female detainee; detainees (of unspecified gender) forcibly arranged in various sexually explicit positions for photographing; and naked female detainees.<3> The Bush administration has refused to release photographs of Iraqi women prisoners at Abu Ghraib, including those of women forced at gunpoint to bare their breasts (although these have been shown to Congress). <4> UK Member of Parliament Ann Clwyd (L) has confirmed a report of an Iraqi woman in her 70s who had been harnessed and ridden like a donkey at Abu Ghraib and another coalition detention centre after being arrested last July. Clwyd said: "She was held for about six weeks without charge. During that time she was insulted and told she was a donkey."<5>
The Italian journalist, Giuliana Sgrena, reports that In the middle of the night, American soldiers broke into the home of Mithal al Hassan and arrested both her and her son. “The soldiers later ransacked the apartment. Denounced as part of a vendetta, Mithal was condemned without trial to eighty days of horror in the company of other women prisoners who, like her, were subjected to abuse and torture. She has since spotted her tormentors on the internet.” <6> A culture of honor prevents many women from telling stories of rapes. The account given by “Selwa”, illustrates this. In September 2003, Selwa was taken by US military personnel to a detention facility in Tikrit, where an American of?cer lit a mixture of human feces and urine in a metal container and gave Selwa a heavy club to stir it. She recalls, “The ?re from the pot felt very strong on my face.” She leans forward and sweeps her hands through the air to show how she stirred the excrement. “I became very tired,” she says. “I told the sergeant I couldn’t do it.” “There was another man close to us. The sergeant came up to me and whispered in my ear, ‘If you don’t, I will tell one of the soldiers to fuck you.’” Selwa could not continue with the story.<7>An Iraqi girl, Raghada, reports that her mother, imprisoned at Abu Ghraib, was forced to eat from a toilet and was urinated on<8>.
Iman Khamas, head of the International Occupation Watch Center, a nongovernmental organization which gathers information on human rights abuses under coalition rule, has said; “one former detainee had recounted the alleged rape of her cell mate in Abu Ghraib.” According to Khamas, the prisoner said; “she had been rendered unconscious for 48 hours.” She claimed; “She had been raped 17 times in one day by Iraqi police in the presence of American solders”.<9>

http://www.uruknet.info/?p=11094&hd=0&size=1&l=x

at least they're free. :puke:

and it seems we never learn :(


Women and children are always victimized during times of war. I keep thinking one day humans will know better...

Going to my first Women in Black vigil 4/23 !

http://www.womeninblack.net/

Women in Black

It gets kind of hard to tell around here --

Totally support Women in Black and your efforts in that direction are to be applauded. Hope to hear about your experience and to post it is a way of educating and/or encouraging others.

:hi:

They will be having a Vigil for Peace on 4/30 featuring Diane Santoriello, Gold Star Mother of Neil Santoriello, Killed in action 8/15/04

I can't even type this without crying (-my daughter is in my lap.)

Okay,now.

There will be a dedication of Gold Star Flags and reading of names of the Pennsylvania Casualties in the Iraq War.

They are trying to contact parents and family of those fallen soldiers to request permission to place their names on the flags (otherwise their names will be read aloud, but the flags will be blank.)

Anyone here, know of any dead from PA ?

Women in Black are one of the few well-respected anti-war groups in my acre of the South.
NO ONE messes with them.
Love them!

severe injury and death to hundreds of thousands of civilians. But that's nothing new or anything. It's not like Iraq is new, shocking, or even remotely unexpected.

Hell, it's gone better than I expected, but I'm slightly more of a pessimist than most. That by no means is to be taken as support of the war in any regard, by the way. It just means I thought it would be even worse than it is.

we know men suffer too, but women have always been singled out for a very "special" kind of drawn-out torture and suffering, usually to the tune of crowds of hearty male laughter.

There is another thread up right now that points out lst year's brief reportage of abuse to male prisoners--the women's plight was entirely ignored. The sexualized abuse of the men, (and by a woman!!), grabbed national attention and outrage, but it represents an aberration. Its what's been par for the course for women since forever.

Everything about this war makes me ill.

when will humanity learn?
we are not doing very well

Hearing stories like this is what makes me even more disgusted with Bush and his ilk. I'm not surprised why they wanted the Italian journalist killed. Does anybody know what happened with that??

U.S. Military Prevents the Delivery of Medical Care to Women Civilians

The Fourth Geneva Convention forbids attacks on emergency vehicles and the impediment of medical operations during war. The main hospital in Amiriyat al-Fallujah was raided twice by US soldiers and the Iraqi National Guard; first on November 29, 2004 at 5:40 am and again the next day. Staff reported; “In the first raid about 150 soldiers and at least 40 members of the Iraqi National Guard stormed the small hospital”.<23> Staff reported; “They divided into groups and were all over the hospital. They broke the gates outside, they broke the doors of the garage, and the raided our supply room where our food and supplies are”.<24> Staff members were then handcuffed and interrogated for several hours about resistance fighters. One staff member recounts; “The Americans threatened that they would do what they did in Fallujah if I didn’t cooperate with them”.<25>
Medical care for civilians was blocked by snipers that are set up along the roads to Fallujah that fire on ambulances. Doctors from the main hospital in Amiriyat al-Fallujah are reporting; “The Americans have snipers all along the road between here and Fallujah. They are shooting our ambulances if they try to go to Fallujah”.<26> In addition, medical supplies are being blocked from being sent to hospitals by US troops. In nearby Saqlawiyah, Doctor Abdulla Aziz reported that supplies were being blocked from reaching or leaving Amiriyat al-Fallujah; “They won’t let any of our ambulances go to help Fallujah. We are out of supplies and they won’t let anyone bring us more”.<27>
Obstruction of medical care to the civilian population of Iraq seems to be a pattern that has persisted. Dr. Abdul Jabbar, orthopedic surgeon at Fallujah General Hospital claims that; “The marines have said they didn’t close the hospital, but essentially they did. They closed the bridge, which connects us to the city, and closed our roads. They prevented medical care reaching countless patients in desperate need. Who knows how many of them died that we could have saved?”.<28>
http://www.uruknet.info/?p=11094&hd=0&size=1&l=x

That is what the bush people are all about. They FUKKKK women. THey
destroy womens rights. THey rape women; they kill them and destroy the
evidence. Pay your taxes, and you are a rapist too. Welcome to the
national socialist republican states of AmeriKa.