A/HRC/45/CRP.7
the other migrant detainees. In all the cases verified by the Group, perpetrators used vaginal,
anal and oral rape, and gang rape against migrant women and girls. They used similar types
of violence against survivors before, during and after inflicting sexual violence, including
inflicting severe beatings and threats at gunpoint to repress attempts to resist or to escape.
Women and girls described how they were raped on multiple occasions over several days. In
some cases at the same time they could hear or see other soldiers and guards raping others in
the vicinity. One woman was raped multiple times over 13 days by 28 different soldiers. 288
199. The Group has identified that these acts of sexual violence displayed several
commonalities, including the temporal and geographical circumstances, the type of victims
and perpetrators, the perpetrators’ modus operandi and the repetition of the acts. The Group
concluded that these acts of sexual violence were committed as part of a pattern of violations
by the UAE-backed Security Belt forces.
“The second time they raped me was even more painful and distressing. Four
soldiers took me to a hill. They tore off all my clothes. One stuffed his headscarf
in my mouth so I couldn’t scream, one forced me to the floor. All four took it in
turns to rape me, it was extremely painful and I was in and out of consciousness.
They left me there naked and bleeding, until a kind Yemeni women found me.”
Woman survivor of rape289
200. Security Belt soldiers and guards at the ad-hoc facility on the Lahij-Aden highway
physically accosted two women and two girls - aged 17 and 15 years - while making sexually
suggestive comments and/or touching their sexual organs. The survivors also told the Group
that there were instances in which soldiers and guards – both at the ad-hoc facility on the
highway and at the “22 May Stadium” - attempted to coerce some women and girls to engage
in sexual intercourse with them in exchange for their release and then they took them away
elsewhere. Witnesses did not see these women and girls again after they were taken away.
201. The Group received credible reports that Security Belt forces in these facilities
attempted to rape a 15-year-old boy and left him badly injured and unconscious as a result.
These same forces reportedly raped another boy in similar circumstances. The Group also
received allegations that on one occasion, soldiers took three migrant boys (10-12 years old)
away from the other detainees, and the three returned later, traumatised, stating that they had
been raped.
202. According to witnesses, guards used forced nudity as part of cruel and inhuman
treatment to humiliate, control and punish groups of male migrants. This included removing
all their clothes except their underwear, and forcing them to roll on top of each other in mud
or breaking bottles on their heads.290
203. The Group found that these sexual violence violations were not isolated acts of sexual
violence but acts that were all committed in a particular context, which cannot be disregarded.
These acts were committed under the guise of the armed conflict, in a period - March-June
2019 - in which the UAE-backed Security Belt forces were present in the South of the country
and in control of several military facilities between Aden and Lahij, where migrants were
arbitrarily detained. Furthermore, when these same forces committed similar violations in
the past (e.g., in the Bureiqa Migrant Detention Facility) they were not held to account, with
the consequence that perpetrators are aware of the situation of impunity arising from, inter
alia, a criminal justice system that is not dealing effectively with conflict-related violations
or victims’ security concerns.
204. These sexual violence acts were situated in a broader context of structural
discrimination against the survivors, all of whom were Ethiopian migrants. The caste-like
system in Yemen reinforces the “subordinate” status of black African communities,
reminiscent of the treatment of the minority “Muhamasheen” community in Yemen, and
embeds the perception that women and children from these communities are worth less than
288
Confidential sources on file.
Confidential sources on file.
290 Confidential sources on file.
289
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