The Independent: The Houthis have kidnapped more than a thousand Yemeni women and are subjected to sexual violence
English - Thursday 08 July 2021 الساعة 03:42 pm
Aden, NewsYemen:
The British Independent newspaper highlighted the atrocities of the Houthi militia, the Iranian arm in Yemen, against the kidnapped women, including torture and sexual violence and forcing them to work in prostitution.
In a report by journalist Charlene Rodrigo, The Independent reviewed the case of the kidnapping of the artist, Intisar Al Hammadi, who was stopped by the Houthis last February at a checkpoint northwest of the capital, Sanaa, while she was on her way to participate in a photo session.
The newspaper said that he does not know the exact reason for her arrest, but her lawyer, Khaled Al-Kamal, claims that the reason is that she works as an "actress".
It pointed out that Al-Hammadi told a delegation of journalists and lawyers when they visited her in the central prison in Sana'a last month, that she was "accused of drug smuggling and prostitution without any evidence." Weeks later, she was "threatened to undergo a virginity test, which the authorities later rescinded."
added that Houthi security officials passed her and other girls into several homes, and "forced them to drink alcohol and sleep with people." When the Houthis were confronted with accusations of prostitution, they replied: "It is okay as long as he is in the service of the country."
Khaled Al-Kamal told the newspaper that her arrest procedures "contradict the Yemeni constitution and the law."
The Independent notes that Al Hammadi's case is not unique, as Noura Al-Jarawi, chair of the Women's Coalition for Peace, said that between December 2017 and 2020, around 1,181 women were arrested.
He believes that the actual number of women languishing in prisons run by the Houthis "is much higher, because there are secret and illegal sites that are often located in hard-to-reach areas."
Al-Kamal confirmed to the newspaper that cases of forced kidnapping, torture and sexual violence against women have "escalated since 2015", and that he is defending other people in ten cases similar to Al-Hammadi's case.
Speaking to five survivors, lawyers and human rights activists, The Independent says it has learned that sexual violence against women is "pervasive in Houthi-run detention sites in Yemen".
"The Houthis did not differentiate between women between the ages of 13 and 55 during their efforts to silence dissent," she added.
The newspaper pointed out that the Houthis "broke the pelvis of Sedika al-Hammadi and tortured another woman until she was paralyzed and lost consciousness, and even married some girls from the group's members."
"Women and their children were raped in the custody of the Houthis," Al-Jarawi told The Independent.
She added that the Houthis use coercion, blackmail and intimidation to trap women.
When Sonia Ali Ghobash, 31, refused to work in the intelligence to help target figures outside Sanaa, specifically Mohammed bin Saeed al-Jaber, Saudi Arabia's ambassador to Yemen, the Houthis imprisoned her, gave her electric shocks and cold water, and then raped her, The Independent reported.
"They implanted pins and nails in my back and removed the toenails of my right foot," Ghobash says.
Al-Jarawi explained to the newspaper that the Houthis "use rape as a purification and as a marriage of jihad - tactics not unlike those espoused by al-Qaeda."
In February of this year, the United States retracted the designation of the Houthis as a foreign terrorist organization, which had been imposed by the previous administration of President Donald Trump in January.
The US special envoy to Yemen, Timothy Lenderking, said in a webinar last week that the United States recognizes the Houthis as a legitimate actor.
The newspaper says Lenderking's comments infuriated al-Jaroui and the other survivors. "The Houthis are committing war crimes against Yemenis on a scale not different from al-Qaeda, ISIS, the Taliban and others," al-Jarawi said.
The Houthis are demanding money from the al-Hammadi family, according to the newspaper. Ghobash was released from prison after her family paid the Houthis nearly twenty million Yemeni riyals ($80,000), according to The Independent. Women from poor families were killed in these sites.
