Maat issues a report on violence against women in Libya

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9 December, 2019

Aqil: The Turkish and Qatari intervention contributed to fueling the violence in Libya

Ali Mohamed: The Al-Wefaq government militias torture Libyan women

Today, Monday, December 9, 2019, the Maat Foundation issued a report on violence against women in Libya, on the sidelines of the sixteen-day campaign to eliminate violence against women, which began on November 25 and continues until December 10, and the report emphasized that violence against women and girls constitutes one of the most Human rights violations are widespread, persistent and devastating in our world today. What makes the violations worse is that most of them are still unreported due to the lack of punishment, silence, and the sense of scandal and stigma surrounding it.

The report sheds light on the increasing violence against Libyan women and what this violence includes in many forms such as sexual violence in prisons, kidnappings and extrajudicial killings, and the escalation of violence in camps for the displaced, as well as the impact of external interventions in Libya on the persistence of violent practices against women as well as the weakness of The role of civil society in Libya in putting pressure on the parties to the political conflict to extricate Libyan women from what they have become.

Ayman Aqil, head of the Maat Foundation, said that the Turkish and Qatari intervention in the Libyan affairs contributed to fueling violence and the growing conflict at various levels. Since the Libyan Dawn operations began in 2014, Qatar has spent more than three billion dollars in financing the smuggled weapons that the forces obtain The Accord government and the armed militias loyal to it.

Aqil emphasized that Qatar uses humanitarian aid and charities to give a legal cover to finance armed militias, and among these associations is the Sheikh Thani Bin Abdullah Humanitarian Services Association, which Doha used to fund armed militias by providing them with the necessary funds to support terrorist groups with weapons, which contributed to the growth of the phenomenon. Violence against women, including the encouragement of sexual violence and the increase in internal displacement in Libyan cities.

Aqeel added that Qatar directly supported what was known as the Tripoli Revolutionaries Brigade, which was founded by Abdel Hakim Belhadj and Mahdi Harati, and practiced the most horrific violations against Libyan women under the pretext that they belong to the pre-revolutionary era. Where these militias practiced kidnapping and sexual assault in detention centers against Libyan women.

He also stated that Turkey also played a sabotage role in Libya, and this was confirmed by the air strikes and missiles from the Misurata air base of the Government of National Accord on civilians and cases of forced displacement of cities under the pretext that they are military areas, in addition to the strikes carried out by Turkish "drones" in Libya, which was not denied by the Turkish President, and this bombing had a major role in causing great harm to women in Libya.

For his part, Ali Muhammad, a researcher with the Maat Foundation, confirmed that the special deterrent militia affiliated with the Ministry of Interior in the Government of National Accord violated all international covenants and covenants to commit violence against women and extracted from them confessions under torture without legal basis on the pretext that they belong to the era of Muammar Gaddafi, Field Marshal Khalifa Haftar, and the international community demanded By classifying this militia as a terrorist group.