Female survivors of Assad's prisons face suffering even after release

ISTANBUL

Shamed and abandoned; women held in the Assad regime's prisons in Syria face social rejection after they were released.

Thousands of Syrian women and children have been subjected to torture and detention by the Assad regime since 2011, when the civil war began in the country.

Syrian ex-prisoners Lama Larin Jesry, chairman of NISVA, an association for solidarity with Syrian women, and Ala al-Dari, who changed her name for security reasons, shared their stories with Anadolu Agency.

Jesry was imprisoned for over 100 days by the Syrian regime.

"I was detained for a week during demonstrations in Aleppo in 2012. In 2014, I had one last class left to graduate when I was arrested at the university campus. I was imprisoned for 100 days. They were hard times. They inflicted all kinds of torture on me."

Jesry said that she was deprived of even the most basic rights such as eating in prison and that she was subjected to severe torture.

"Women who were sexually abused by the guards in the Assad prison were tortured for miscarriage. If pregnancy could not be prevented, babies were brutally killed," she said.

Forced to confess crimes she did not commit under torture

Jesry was in coma for 12 days due to torture she was subjected to.

"They thought I was dead and dragged me to the morgue. I regained my consciousness when my head hit the stairs. They transferred me to a military hospital. I had been taken back to the prison before I regained my health. Since the Assad regime intelligence was in Damascus, I was interrogated there for a week. I was tried for the death penalty. I was then released for paying a large sum."

The Syrian ex-prisoner was forced to admit crimes she did not commit under torture.

"When I was released, I went to my family in Aleppo. My family was so happy that I was saved, but I was shocked to see that the society stigmatizes detained women with the 'seal of shame.' Eastern societies stigmatize women who are imprisoned with the seal of shame. Realizing this, it caused me a lot of pain in my inner world," Jesry said.

She pointed out that Syrian women endure inhumanly torture in prisons, but they cannot bear the psychological violence of the society when they go out.

"Behind the bars, I suffered inhumanly torture. I will work until my last breath to deliver the message of female prisoners because they are our honor. Those women sacrificed their freedom for the freedom of others."

Women who escape from prison forced to migrate

Al-Dari was detained by the Assad regime forces two months after the civil war began, and she was tortured for a year in four different prisons.

Al-Dari said she could not stand the torture and had a heart attack, and was imprisoned again after her treatment.

Although the physical violence ended for former women prisoners, psychological violence still continues, she said.

"Society thinks that the 'honor' of women who enter regime prisons was 'tainted' due to the torture they undergone. Women who were unjustly arrested have to migrate to other places after they are released from prison. Those who cannot migrate continue their lives on the condition that they do not speak."

Al-Dari also said that the women could not express the torture and sexual abuse they suffered not to be neglected by their husbands, families and society, and that they could not file a criminal complaint with international courts.

*Writing by Seda Sevencan