Published : 11-01-2021
Palestinian sisters Houda, born in 1975, and Samira Mahmoud Khatib, born in 1970, have been secretly held in Syrian government prisons since 2013.
Both sisters were raised in Yarmouk Camp for Palestinian refugees, in Damascus. Their family continues to appeal for information over their condition and whereabouts.
Statistics released by AGPS on the International Women’s Day last year documented the secret detention of 110 Palestinian women and girls in Syria’s government prisons.
AGPS also documented the death of at least 34 Palestinian women under torture in Syria’s state-run penal complexes.
At the same time, 486 Palestinian women from Syria have been pronounced dead since the outburst of the bloody warfare in the Syrian Arab Republic.
AGPS believes the numbers to be far higher as scores of casualties have gone undocumented after the Syrian authorities kept their names secret. Several families have also refused to reveal their relatives’ names over retaliation concerns.
According to affidavits by ex-detainees, Palestinian women and girls have been subjected to harsh psycho-physical torture tactics in Syrian penitentiaries, including electric shocks, heavy beating using iron sticks, and sexual abuse.
Such practices represent flagrant violations of the Declaration on the Protection of Women and Children in Emergency and Armed Conflict of 1974, Article 5, which criminalizes all forms of torture and mistreatment against women and children.
Inherently a taboo misdemeanor in the MENA region, violence against women, be it sexual, physical, or verbal, has remained under-reported among the Palestinian refugee community in Syria, with reasons wavering between fear of retaliation, embarrassment, fear of punishment for those below the age of criminal responsibility, and distrust in law enforcement.
Palestinian sisters Houda, born in 1975, and Samira Mahmoud Khatib, born in 1970, have been secretly held in Syrian government prisons since 2013.
Both sisters were raised in Yarmouk Camp for Palestinian refugees, in Damascus. Their family continues to appeal for information over their condition and whereabouts.
Statistics released by AGPS on the International Women’s Day last year documented the secret detention of 110 Palestinian women and girls in Syria’s government prisons.
AGPS also documented the death of at least 34 Palestinian women under torture in Syria’s state-run penal complexes.
At the same time, 486 Palestinian women from Syria have been pronounced dead since the outburst of the bloody warfare in the Syrian Arab Republic.
AGPS believes the numbers to be far higher as scores of casualties have gone undocumented after the Syrian authorities kept their names secret. Several families have also refused to reveal their relatives’ names over retaliation concerns.
According to affidavits by ex-detainees, Palestinian women and girls have been subjected to harsh psycho-physical torture tactics in Syrian penitentiaries, including electric shocks, heavy beating using iron sticks, and sexual abuse.
Such practices represent flagrant violations of the Declaration on the Protection of Women and Children in Emergency and Armed Conflict of 1974, Article 5, which criminalizes all forms of torture and mistreatment against women and children.
Inherently a taboo misdemeanor in the MENA region, violence against women, be it sexual, physical, or verbal, has remained under-reported among the Palestinian refugee community in Syria, with reasons wavering between fear of retaliation, embarrassment, fear of punishment for those below the age of criminal responsibility, and distrust in law enforcement.
