A/HRC/27/60 those areas are unable to leave, even to seek food or medical treatment, and are unable to flee the areas when they come under attack. 2. (a) Non-State armed groups Anti-Government armed groups 79. Armed groups belonging to the Islamic Front, Ahrar Al-Sham, and Jabhat al-Nusra, have targeted women and children, on the basis of their gender, to be taken as hostages for use in prisoner exchanges. (b) Islamic State of Iraq and Al-Sham 80. In Ar Raqqah governorate, women who appeared in public with their face and hair uncovered were lashed. 3. Impact of the conflict 81. Since Syrian men are unable to move around the country for fear of arrest at checkpoints, women are responsible for travelling between areas to seek food, medicine and, increasingly, work. Unaccompanied by men, they are vulnerable to physical assaults and are at risk of arrest or abduction by Government forces and by anti-Government armed groups. 82. Lack of access to medical care has affected the prenatal and postnatal health of women and their children. Women in labour have not been allowed through government checkpoints and have been forced to give birth under often dangerous circumstances. In areas under siege, women have given birth in unsterile conditions and without pain medication. 83. Syrian men are often absent, because they are fighting, detained or have been disappeared or killed, forcing women to become the primary caretakers of their families. Given the limited employment available, both inside the Syrian Arab Republic and in refugee camps, women are struggling to support their families economically. With Syrian women isolated and under immense strain, reports of depression among them have skyrocketed. One woman, pregnant and with a one-year old son, fled Aleppo after the disappearance of her husband and the deaths of her parents in a shelling attack. Unable to find relatives able to take her and her son in and without the possibility of a stable job, she said all she could do was “cry, weep and rely on God”. Her situation is, tragically, increasingly common. F. Violations of children’s rights 1. Government forces 84. The war in the Syrian Arab Republic has taken a devastating toll on children’s lives. Children have been killed, injured and maimed, suffering the direct consequences of the indiscriminate violence of Government forces. They have also been affected by displacement, loss of relatives and the trauma of witnessing acts of violence. 85. Popular Committees operating in Aleppo city have recruited and used children as messengers, spies and guards. A member of an anti-Government armed group stated that 16- and 17-year-old armed pro-Government fighters had been captured during military assaults. Multiple accounts from Aleppo describe children aged between 6 and 13 used by Government forces as part of coordinated military operations to locate armed group fighters prior to attack. Children were paid to act as informants, which exposes them to retaliation 13