Male rape, castration and genital mutilation - a common but overlooked practice in Syrian prisons
As early as last spring, the United Nations warned of all the "spillover effects" of the Syrian civil war, which, however, has grown into a regular armed conflict. The most frequently cited problems were the exploitation of the indigenous population, the sexual abuse of women and then the huge fear of LGBT people of the newly established order. LGBT people in particular began leaving the country in droves when it became clear that sexual violence was a common practice in prisons, according to UN material. However, as the new UN findings suggest, it is also the sexual violence, genital mutilation and castration that a huge number of Syrian political prisoners are subjected to.
The Syrian armed conflict has been going on for more than eight years. In that time, around 100,000 men have been detained and imprisoned, most of them in facilities under the direct supervision of government forces. However, as the latest reports from the UN and cooperating human rights organisations suggest, it is members of the Syrian armed forces who are significantly abusing their position. As a result, thousands (if not tens of thousands) of men face various forms of violence, including sexual violence. According to a recently published report, members of the Syrian security forces are not afraid of practically anything. For example, when forcing confessions, they hose down interrogators with water through the anus...
"We have uncovered widespread, pervasive and brutal sexual violence against political prisoners across government detention centres," the official report said. In addition, it also provides testimony regarding specific practices with medical reports of all victims, or documentation provided by survivors...
However, there are of course no specific statistics regarding the level of sexual abuse behind the walls of Syrian prisons. On the one hand, because the survivors disappear from the country as quickly as possible and try to forget the horrors they have experienced. On the other hand, because many men who have been abused in this way are ashamed and prefer to keep quiet about it. According to psychologists, in addition to their own sense of dishonour, the enormous humiliation associated with anal sexual practices in Islamic countries is also to blame.
"These men come from overwhelmingly conservative communities. They leave prison as shattered human beings stripped of all their masculinity. Those we work with are often convinced that they will never recover from the horrors they have experienced," says Jalal Nofel, a Syrian psychiatrist who works with former prisoners held in Gaziantep (a Turkish city near the border with Syria). "One of our other clients from Douma didn't speak to anyone for three days after he returned, and then he just killed himself," Nofel adds.
In interviews with The Washington Post, dozens of men who have been held in government prisons describe how they were forced to strip naked in front of guards and lay naked for days with other prisoners in filthy cells. They also mentioned extreme forms of sexual abuse, including the use of various (even sharp) objects that guards inserted into their rectums. "There were times when you couldn't feel like a human being," describes one of them (anonymously, of course, because of fear for his own safety and that of his family). I wished I didn't exist at all," he adds.
The problem in these cases, however, is the complete lack of a support system for these prisoners - or rather, according to humanitarian organisations, the need for such care completely exceeds any capacity that international organisations operating in the conflict zone have at their disposal. Men are far less likely than women to seek any kind of professional help, and this is doubly true in the case of sexual violence. According to data collected by Médecins Sans Frontières, men make up only 5% of the group of victims of sexual violence who have sought help in all 61 countries where the organisation was active between 2004 and 2014.
The fact that the problem is certainly not a new one is evidenced by the fact that back in 2016, the topic of sexual violence against men in the Syrian region was covered by a journalist from the British Guardian - who, however, pointed out that male rape is definitely not just a prison issue. She visited places where Syrians are gathered in refugee camps, such as Kurdistan (Iraq), where over 200 000 refugees have taken refuge, but also in Jordan and Lebanon, and began to target the population there. She herself was shocked at the response she received when asked if she had heard of sexual violence against boys and men in Syria. "They looked at me in total disbelief, as if they didn't understand that I was asking something so obvious. Then they just added that it happens absolutely everywhere. That in every family there is someone who has this experience." Again, the reporter encountered a dual perspective - men recounted how their friends were raped when troops invaded cities, how they were sexually tortured when they were kidnapped. The women described how these men changed after experiencing the horrors - they isolated themselves, stopped being interested in sex, some became rapists themselves.
But LGBT people did not escape the attention of the journalist quoted above - they logically faced a double stigma in the refugee camps - because they were refugees, but also because they were members of a minority. "One gay man told me that he was held in prison in Syria for four months - during which time he and many other men were anally raped with sticks and bottles. He was still in pain when sitting down. So he escaped to a neighbouring country, where he was attacked by a gang for a change and eventually by security guards. It was clear to him that he was still in danger," he writes.
It is clear, then, that rape (which even historically many associate primarily with soldiers who have conquered territories, and on that occasion raped and murdered countless women) is certainly not just a "women's issue." As a tool of domination, humiliation, loss of self-esteem and sense of self-integrity, it works perfectly well when "applied" to men. Moreover, in the case of Syrian political prisoners, the aim is clear - to humiliate opponents (the phrase "subjugate men" is reportedly used for these practices). And since male rape is indeed taboo in Arab countries in particular, these people are not only unable to continue living their lives, but are certainly no longer able to engage in other political activities... The classic tools of war are no longer even needed...
