BAGHDAD — Iraqi authorities are detaining thousands of women illegally and subjecting many to torture and ill-treatment, including the threat of sexual abuse, Human Rights Watch said in a report published on Thursday, Feb. 6. 

Many women were detained for months or even years without charge before seeing a judge, HRW said, and security forces often questioned them about their male relatives’ activities rather than crimes in which they themselves were implicated.

In custody, women described being kicked, slapped, hung upside-down and beaten on the soles of their feet, given electric shocks, threatened with sexual assault by security forces during interrogation, and even raped in front of their relatives and children.

“The abuses of women we documented are in many ways at the heart of the current crisis in Iraq,” said HRW’s deputy Middle East and North Africa director Joe Stork in a statement accompanying the report, titled: “‘No One Is Safe’: Abuses of Women in Iraq’s Criminal Justice System.”

“These abuses have caused a deep-seated anger and lack of trust between Iraq’s diverse communities and security forces, and all Iraqis are paying the price.”

A spokesman for Iraq’s Human Rights Ministry said the testimonies in the HRW report were “over-exaggerated,” but acknowledged that “we have some limited illegal behaviors which were practiced by security forces against women prisoners”, which it said had been identified by the ministry’s own teams.

These teams had referred their reports to the relevant authorities, “asking them to bring those who are responsible for mistreating female detainees to justice”, the spokesman said.

“Iraq is still working to put an end to prison abuse and, with more time, understanding of law and patience, such illegal practices will become a history,” he said.