The torment of Yemeni women.” The Houthis are an Iranian “crime” against the Yemenis
English - Tuesday 29 March 2022 الساعة 03:40 pm
Sana'a, NewsYemen, private:
Yemeni women and girls are facing increasing violence from the terrorist Houthi militia, which has gone beyond the deterioration of their living, psychological and social status in the country, in general, to their exposure to horrific crimes due to the vengeful tendency of the Iranian arm against them.
Militia violence is not limited to restricting women’s freedoms, but has transgressed into chapters and types of torment in a precedent that Yemeni social life has not known, according to the accounts of former detainees and others who were subjected to enforced disappearance and torture while in detention or exploitation, in a social revenge in which leaders of the Houthi authorities were implicated against Yemeni women.
He raped me and sent me to spy
The Houthi militia used many Yemeni women in the war as shields in its combat operations, which is considered a violation of Yemeni values and customs that the militia has adopted to win the war it has been waging for years.
Sawsan told NewsYemen that a Houthi supervisor in the Houban area raped her at the end of 2019 and she became pregnant with a child as a result of this rape. She said that the Houthi supervisor "Abu Jihad" used her to carry out espionage activities in areas controlled by the legitimate government in favor of the Houthis, where she was arrested and deposited central Prison.
Sawsan adds that she gave birth to the child she was pregnant with from the rape of the Houthi supervisor inside the central reformatory in the city center. After that, "my health and psychological condition doubled, and I could not take care of myself and my child."
The militia was not satisfied with the operation of raping Sawsan and sending her to the city center to carry out espionage activities, but the priest inflicted shells on her while she was in the central reformatory on April 5, 2020, which led to her being hit by shrapnel from the shells that rained down on the women’s prison ward and caused her a permanent disability as a result of her hand injury. The bombing killed five and wounded 11 other women who were next to her.
The militia transformed Sawsan's life into chapters of pain that will grow with her and her child, and her tragedy will not stop at this point.
Restriction of liberties
The Houthi militia has turned the lives of Yemeni women into a hell of bombing and exploitation, exposing their lives to death and disability, resulting in a great misfortune that has amounted to interfering in their privacy and imposing a dress determined by the terrorist militia and the use of force to implement this, as its authorities did with the students of Sanaa and Dhamar Universities, which are under its control.
Two years ago, the militia celebrated the graduation of a faction from the Zainabiyat in Sana'a called the Zahra Brigade 2, led by Zainab al-Gharbani. It is the second in the months of the graduation of Class 1 led by Ishraq al-Shami, and they were provided with light weapons and electric detonators in preparation for their use in dispersing any women's demonstration in the areas under its control.
In February last year, militia authorities in Sanaa stopped 20-year-old Intisar al-Hammadi, along with three of her female colleagues, at a checkpoint while she was on her way to a photo session. The militia accused her of committing an immoral act and possession of drugs and proceeded to try her in violation of the law.
"Human Rights Watch" considered the unfair trial, arbitrary arrest, and abuse during detention committed by the militia against Al Hammadi as a flagrant violation of women's rights. Since late 2014, the organization has documented many cases of arbitrary and abusive detention by the Houthis and their use of torture and other forms of torture, such as beating them with iron rods and rifles, and hanging them on walls with their hands tied behind.
Secret prisons for women and rape
The Yemeni Organization for Combating Human Trafficking revealed in January of last year that it had received a number of reports of the kidnapping and disappearance of approximately 120 women, only to discover later that the militia was holding them in a villa on Tahrir Street in Sana’a, torturing them and practicing many violations against them, and released about 40 of them in exchange for a ransom.
In its report for the year 2021 submitted to the Security Council on January 25, the United Nations Panel of Experts on Yemen confirmed the "humanitarian violations" committed by the Houthi militia against Yemeni women and children, amounting to rape in prisons and secret detention centers run by the militia. An arm of Iran, within the areas under its control, including Sanaa.
The experts' report documented, "Two women were detained and raped by the Houthis for refusing to participate in cultural courses," which are courses held by the militias to support their war and sectarian operations, while the Houthis "raped a child while he was receiving training at their hands."
According to the report, the international mission investigated 17 cases involving 50 victims of violations of international human rights law in relation to detention, including sexual violence and torture at the hands of militias.
The UN team condemned the Houthi detention of female activists who opposed their views politically or professionally, and they were "tortured, mutilated and sexually assaulted, and allegations of prostitution of female detainees were used with the aim of stripping community support."
The report cited nine cases of violations in which the Houthis "kidnapped and detained women politically or professionally active because of their opposition to their ideological views or political orientation."
According to the "UN team, the militia used " allegations of “prostitution” as a pretext to limit the provision of community support to the arrested victims and prevent their active participation in the local community, and to ensure that “they did not threaten their authorities, in addition to recording and retaining indecent videos to continue using them as a means of pressure against any opposition from these women.”
Lean years for Yemeni women
During the period from December 2017 to December 2020, the report "Houthi Prisons, Graves of Women" issued by the March 8 bloc for Yemeni women, documented violations committed by the Houthis against women, and the number of female detainees reached 1181, including: 274 cases of enforced disappearance, and 292 female detainees are activists. and human rights defenders from the education sector, and 246 cases of female relief and humanitarian workers.
It also documented 71 cases of rape and 4 cases of suicide. In terms of the age group of female detainees, the number of female detainees under the age of 18 has reached more than 293 cases, in addition to documenting dozens of cases of male and female children who were detained with their detained mothers. Also, among the detainees, 8 belong to the Baha'i sect.
Security Council: Houthi leaders involved in violence against women
Despite calls by local and international organizations for the Houthis to stop using violence and excessive use of it against Yemeni women, their insistence on violence led to the inclusion of leaders, including Sultan Saleh Aida Zabin, to be subject to sanctions on February 25, 2021, pursuant to paragraphs 11 and 15 of Resolution 2140 ( 2014), and paragraph 14 of resolution 2216 (2015), because it meets the criteria set out in paragraphs 17 and 18 of the said resolution for having played a prominent role in the policy of intimidation and the systematic use of arrest, detention, torture, sexual violence and rape against politically active women.
Zabin, in his capacity as Director of the Criminal Investigation Department or under his authority, is directly responsible for the use of, or is a partner in, the use of various places of detention, including places of house arrest, police stations, official prisons, and unannounced places of detention. In those locations, women, including at least one minor, were subjected to enforced disappearance, repeated interrogation, rape, torture, denial of timely medical treatment, and forced labor. Zabin, himself, directly tortured in some cases.
The militia's challenge to international conventions
International human rights law and the law of war pay great attention to providing protection for women, whether in their capacity as civilians, or as mothers of children and pregnant women in particular. It also ensures their protection, when they are fighters and participants in hostilities, and the criminalization of all forms of violence against women, as an important humanitarian issue.
The Geneva Conventions of 1949, and their Additional Protocols of 1977, provide such protection, as Article 14 of the Third Geneva Convention affirms that women are treated with all the special consideration due to their gender, and the phrase (with all consideration) means any physical weakness, honor, modesty, pregnancy and motherhood . Article 27 of the Fourth Geneva Convention referred to the special protection of women against any attack on their honor, in particular rape, enforced prostitution, and any indecent assault.
This article is considered the first of the texts and provisions on rape, as it considered it unacceptable during the period of armed conflict, but it did not recognize the gravity (and gravity) of the problem that women may consider if they are assaulted with such acts.
Article 4 of the Second Protocol on Internal Armed Conflicts prohibits violations of human dignity, especially humiliating and degrading treatment, rape, forced prostitution, and anything that outrages modesty, with regard to the protection of women fighters.
However, the terrorist Houthi militia continues to violate all international laws, despite UN condemnations of its leaders, who committed violations against women, which led to its listing as an international, European and Arab terrorist organization.
