A/HRC/45/CRP.7 Allah, or by one of the “Masters”.298 In others, survivors were also told they were animals, no longer human, and the property of the perpetrators; in one case as a “spoil of war”.299 208. Sometimes interrogators or female guards selected groups of women and girls on rotation to be raped. Survivors told the Group that they were subjected to rape regardless of their caste or family political affiliations. They described how they witnessed Zainabiyat guards and other personnel take inmates away from cells and then return them afterwards. These women and girls returned traumatised, injured and/or stating that they had been raped. Detainees would hear the screams and muffled cries of other detainees in neighbouring rooms. The Group received allegations that two women and one 15-year-old girl apparently died in their cells after being raped, or after beatings from guards for resisting attempts to take them to be raped. The rapes broke some survivors’ wills, and combined with the isolation and humiliation, left them hopeless and suicidal.300 “I considered killing myself, but there was nothing in my cell I could find to do it. When they threatened to shoot or kill me I ended up hoping they would just do it to spare me from the pain.” Woman survivor of rape301 209. Detainees at the facilities were falsely accused of prostitution302 and immorality, of supporting the coalition, including by inciting the so-called coalition-led “soft war”,303 and of affiliation with other enemy parties, and spying for them. Male interrogators, assisted by female guards, subjected detainees to interrogations and torture. They used this purposefully to humiliate, stigmatise and coerce them to admit to false accusations. This included electrocution, burning, beating, suspending them for long periods in painful positions, threats to rape them or family members, forced nudity and in two cases sexual violence by grabbing their breasts or vulva.304 The Group was informed that photographs and videos were taken of detainees confessing to accusations or in degrading positions, and they were reminded that these could be released to their families if they did not comply with Houthi demands.305 210. While held in these facilities, survivors told the Group it was mandatory for them to attend a “program” of lectures and indoctrination on their responsibilities as women and girls, on Houthi history and ideology, and on the coalition threat. Some women and girls had their heads shaved. A detainee described how in one facility women and girls were forced to move boxes of what looked like munitions, and work for many hours a day making large quantities of food, which guards told them was for the front line. “They made us take part in what they called ‘cultural courses’. They taught us about how we needed to obey the Houthis, about the corruption of the youth 298 Each of these honorific terms has specific connotations in Yemen which confer holiness or privilege or high-caste status on the holders. 299 Confidential sources on file. 300 Confidential sources on file. 301 Confidential sources on file. 302 The UN Panel of Experts noted that “Labelling women as prostitutes or criminals serves at minimum three purposes: it deters families from searching for and protesting the disappearance of the women due to the associated shame; it allows officials to conduct arrests, detentions and violations of these women with impunity; and the threat of being labelled deters these and additional women from participating in political activity or other forms of dissent.” See UN Panel of Experts, Report, 2019, Annex 5, para. 10. 303 The so-called “soft war” is perceived - as per public statements made by the Houthi supreme leader (Adbul Malik Al Houthi) – as a cultural attack against the Yemeni society with diverse influences and negative factors. The “soft war” is a complex concept that, according to the Houthi leader, manifests itself through an attack on “the faithful, in order to deprive them of their principles and deviate them from their identity and morals of religion, so the cultural war is the same as the soft war” (excerpt from public speech by Abdul Malik Al Houthi delivered on 20 December 2019 entitled “The Faith in Yemen”). 304 Confidential sources on file. 305 Confidential sources on file. 57