2024-02-13T19:13:18+00:00
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/ The United Nations Human Rights Office stated in a report on Tuesday that Syrian refugees who fled the war are exposed to serious human rights violations such as torture and kidnapping upon their return to their homes, while women are exposed to sexual harassment and violence.
“The report paints a worrying picture of the plight of returnees, especially women, amid an increasing number of deportations of Syrians from other countries,” Elizabeth Throssell, spokesperson for the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, told a news conference in Geneva.
“There are reasonable grounds to believe that the overall conditions in Syria do not allow for the safe, dignified and sustainable return of Syrian refugees to their homeland,” she added.
The 35-page report said the violations it documented in Syria were committed by individuals affiliated with the government, opposition authorities and armed groups.
A Syrian government spokesman did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Some women said in interviews that they were harassed and pressured to provide sexual services to security officials and authorities in order to obtain civil documents.
“Women these days have to do everything to survive,” a returnee woman in Eastern Ghouta said in an interview during the preparation of the report. “Especially if they don’t have money, they are often sexually exploited.”
The report highlighted the danger of detaining returnees, noting that detained women are often stigmatized afterwards on the basis of the assumption that they were raped or sexually assaulted, even if this did not happen.
“In some cases, their husbands divorce them and their families disown them,” the report said.
More than 12 years after the start of the conflict in Syria, there are still more than five million refugees in neighboring host countries, some of which are under increasing pressure to return them to their countries, and some have been forcibly deported to Syria.