A/HRC/30/48 50. Women have also been targeted because of their familial links, actual or assumed, with male members of opposing warring parties. For the belligerents, the very act of detaining a woman, with all the risks to her person that this implies, appears designed to humiliate not only the woman, but also – and arguably, primarily – her male relatives. 51. Government forces have arrested female lawyers, journalists and peace activists and those expressing anti-Government sentiments. Women have also been detained in order to force the surrender of male relatives suspected of fighting with, or otherwise supporting, anti-Government armed groups. 52. Female detainees are imprisoned in squalid, insect-infested cells and subjected to torture and inhuman treatment, as detailed in Section F. Medical care, if available at all, is inadequate. In particular, no care is taken to address women’s distinct medical and physiological needs. 53. Women have suffered rape and other forms of sexual violence by Government personnel while held in detention facilities. Sexual assault has also been committed by Government forces at checkpoints. That women can move more freely than men in Government-held areas has increased their vulnerability to physical and sexual assault, by Government forces and by criminal elements within the civilian population. 54. The Government’s campaign of arrests and disappearance of fighting-age men has had acute economic and social effects on the women left behind. The mental anguish that women endure as a result of the disappearance of their male relatives is a human rights violation in itself. Beyond this, female relatives are often left with no means of supporting themselves or their children. Without confirmation of death, they are in legal limbo, unable to inherit or sell property, or to remarry. 55. Anti-Government armed groups have kidnapped women in order to effect prisoner exchanges for women and fighters detained by the Government. 56. Approximately 100 women and children were taken hostage by a coalition of armed groups, including Jabhat Al-Nusra and Ahrar Al-Sham, during an attack on Alawite villages in Latakia countryside in August 2013. The hostages (at least half of whom were minors) received limited medical treatment and food. Three elderly women died of treatable ailments while detained. Approximately 40 have been released in prisoner exchanges so far. 57. In recent months, Jabhat Al-Nusra assumed control of some towns and villages in the Idlib countryside. Reports are emerging from Maarrat Misrin about the group’s restrictions of personal freedoms, including a requirement that women cover their hair. Two women were reportedly executed in January 2015 in Maarrat Misrin and Hafsarjah, following a local Sharia court’s finding that they had committed adultery. 58. Since ISIS emerged as a force in early 2013, cases of women being stoned to death have been documented. Often accused of having committed adultery, it appears that many were executed for assisting fighters of other groups or for continuing professional activities. In so doing, women came into contact with men to whom they were not related. 59. As detailed in Section H, ISIS continues to hold Yazidi women and girls captive in sexual slavery. The terrorist group has also forced Sunni women and girls into marriages with its fighters. 60. ISIS has removed women and girls from public life and placed them entirely under the control of male relatives. Women and girls over the age of 10 may not appear publicly without being entirely covered, and may not travel without a close male relative. It is impossible for women whose husbands have died, fled, or are at the battlefront, to leave their homes for any reason without risking punishment. 9