A/HRC/22/59 had taken part in a rape in Aleppo in October– they may have subsequently been prosecuted in a court linked to an armed faction. 35. The commission has come across many reports at second-hand that suggest that sexual violence has become routinized in operations by the security forces. One woman said that she believed that a thousand women had been raped in an attack on Al-Ihraq in Dara’a governorate in August. She said that local leaders ask a young man to marry an unmarried survivors of rape, “if he is willing to protect her” (using the Arabic phrase yustur ‘alayha, which connotes protecting, covering and condoning). Other interviewees from Homs and Dara’a said that several unmarried women or girls were married to FSA fighters after being subjected to rape. Many perceive these marriages as an attempt to come to terms with a crisis of sexual violence. However, such marriages may skirt important questions of consent and run the risk of re-victimising the women and girls concerned. C. Use of schools 36. Anti-Government armed groups occasionally occupy schools as barracks or bases. This has contributed to a widespread belief that schools are not safe, and undermined rights to education in areas controlled or contested by anti-Government armed groups. D. Use of children in hostilities 37. Closing schools, or putting them on the front-line of the conflict in this way imposes a life of isolation and idleness on thousands of children, which can push children towards conflict. Children have relatively limited analytical resources for understanding a conflict which has taxed the interpretative abilities of many – yet they have to try and understand their coercive environment, and incidents of violence which transform their lives for the worse. One 11 year old girl, who lost a close friend and her father in shelling said she believed they were martyrs, and that she wanted to be a martyr herself. 38. Teenage boys face particular pressures because they attract the attention of security forces early on. Interviewees from Dara’a said that boys aged as young as 12 attracted apprehension and violence from Government soldiers at checkpoints. This kind of challenge can push young males towards a fascinated preoccupation with violence, or a desire to act as a protector. For many parents, the fear that their young sons will start experimenting with violence is a reason to send their sons out of the country. One refugee camp near the Syrian border had received almost 500 unaccompanied children at the beginning of 2013. Ninety-seven percent of them were boys, nearly all of them over 14. Many of them are leaving their country and the protection of their families because they fear enlistment. 39. For some under-age boys, the harassment at checkpoints, or the loss of a family member pushes them towards active participation in the conflict. One boy who said he was 17, but looked significantly younger, joined the Al-Nusra Front in early 2012. He said he had made the decision to join after his sister died and his home was destroyed in shelling. He believed that the armed group was the only means by which his family could be protected from further loss. Several interviewees said that this participation was voluntary and some said that it may happen with the encouragement of parents. The commission spoke to one father who supported the decision of two sons, both aged under 18, to join the FSA as fighters. Both died within weeks. 40. There is little tangible evidence to suggest that under-age boys are forcibly conscripted into anti-Government armed groups, which draw many of their recruits from defecting adult soldiers. However, both adult and child members of these armed groups GE.13-10627 85