A/HRC/28/69 178. Consistent accounts indicate that women held in detention facilities administered by the General Security Directorate in Damascus are subjected to sexual violence. Interrogators sexually assaulted detainees in the Al-Arbaieen Branch in April 2012. Incidents of female detainees being raped and sexually tortured in Branch 251 (Al-Khatib Branch) were documented as occurring in March 2011, between July and September 2012, and in March 2014. 179. Victim and witness accounts of rape and sexual violence employed as torture in the course of interrogations were also documented regarding incidents in Mezzeh Prison between June and September 2011 and December 2013 and May 2014, in particular the application of electric shocks to genitals, in Branch 235 (Palestine Branch) in 2013, and at the Criminal Security Branch in Bab Mosala in March 2013. 180. In Dara’a governorate, women faced sexual violence from Government authorities in custodial environments. Interviewees described being threatened with sexual assault in the Criminal Security Branch in Izrah, subjected to rape at a checkpoint before being taken to the Military Security Branch in Dara’a city in 2013, and sexual torture employed in detention facilities in Jasim and Dara’a city in 2014. 181. Victim and witness accounts of sexual violence were also recorded in northern governorates. During house searches in Aleppo city in 2012 and 2013, Government forces sexually assaulted women and men in their homes. In 2013, detainees were raped in the Political Security branch and sexual assaulted at the Military Security branch in Latakia. 182. Violations of physical integrity through the use of torture and ill-treatment and sexual violence, including rape, by Syrian State officials, amounting to severe and systematic violations of international human rights law and international humanitarian law. Syrian government authorities have manifestly failed to protect male and female detainees from sexual harassment, sexual torture, rape and sexual violence in prisons and detention facilities in Damascus, administered by and under the control of the military, intelligence and security agencies. Survivors and witnesses emphasised the long-lasting physical and psychological repercussions of sexual violence. 183. Many women and men, including minors, have been victims of the deliberate use of sexual humiliation, sexual torture and rape while in the custody of Government authorities throughout the span of the unrest and conflict in Syria (from 2011 – 2014). Rape and other forms of sexual violence, amounting to serious violations of international humanitarian law, war crimes and crimes against humanity, entail individual criminal responsibility for the direct perpetrators of crimes and their authors at the highest levels of the chain of command, including the highest levels of Government. 2. Non-State armed groups 184. Accounts have been collected which indicate the vulnerability of women and gay men to sexual assault and harassment at checkpoints run by armed groups. Upon detention, gay men were abused and harmed on the basis of their sexual orientation. Islamic State of Iraq and Al-Sham 185. As documented in the thematic report “Rule of Terror: Living Under ISIS in Syria”, ISIS has executed women and men on the basis of their gender and subjected them to sexual assault and rape, as part of a broader attack on the civilian population in areas of Ar Raqqah and Dayr az Zawr governorates, constituting the crimes against humanity of murder, torture, rape and other inhumane acts. 48