The government of Libya is arbitrarily detaining women and girls in “social rehabilitation” facilities for suspected transgressions of moral codes, locking them up indefinitely without due process. Portrayed as “protective” homes for wayward women and girls or those whose families rejected them, these facilities are de facto prisons. In them, the government routinely violates women’s and girls’ human rights, including those to due process, liberty, freedom of movement, personal dignity, and privacy. Many women and girls detained in these facilities have committed no crime, or have already served a sentence. Some are there for no other reason than that they were raped, and are now ostracized for staining their family’s “honor.” There is no way out unless a male relative takes custody of the woman or girl or she consents to marriage, often to a stranger who comes to the facility looking for a wife.
The official bylaw governing Libya’s social rehabilitation facilities states that they are to provide housing for “women who are vulnerable to engaging in moral misconduct.” The facilities are supposed to “protect” these women and girls from violence by relatives in the name of “family honor,” and to rehabilitate women deemed to have transgressed socially-accepted norms of behavior. But this is protection gone seriously awry: suffering a range of human rights abuses in the facilities, most of the women and girls Human Rights Watch interviewed said they wanted to leave, and would escape if they could.
Human Rights Watch visited two social rehabilitation facilities in April and May 2005. Some of the women and girls we interviewed were confined because they were accused—but not criminally convicted—of having had extramarital sex. Others had served prison sentences for engaging in extramarital sex, and were transferred to the facilities because no male family member would take custody of them. Many had been raped, and then evicted from their homes by their families.
Libya is violating some of the most basic principles of human rights law in the operation of these facilities. The women and girls we interviewed had no opportunity to contest their confinement in a court of law, and had no legal representation. Staff did not allow them to leave the compound gates. They also subjected them to long periods of solitary confinement, sometimes in handcuffs, for trivial reasons like “talking back.” Women and girls were tested for communicable diseases without their consent, and most were forced to endure invasive virginity examinations upon entry to the facilities. The only education the government offers girls in these facilities is weekly religious instruction.
The paradox for women in Libya is striking: legal reforms over the past several decades have put Libya ahead of many countries in the Middle East and North Africa in terms of formal gender equality. For example, Libyan law now protects a woman’s right to hold judicial positions, requires judicial divorce rather than allowing husbands to simply verbally repudiate their wives, and grants women presumptive custody of children upon divorce. Yet the rigid social norms governing women’s and girls’ participation in society and their status in families undermine these legal reforms. They also put women and girls at risk of being stripped of their liberty and held captive in social rehabilitation facilities.
Libya’s zina laws, which criminalize adultery or fornication, can lead to the detention of women and girls in social rehabilitation facilities. These laws, codified in the penal code, discourage rape victims from seeking justice by presenting the threat of prosecution of the victims themselves. Women and girls who attempt to press charges for rape risk being imprisoned for adultery or fornication if they are unable to meet the high threshold of evidence required in rape cases. Judges in Libya also have the authority to propose marriage between the rapist and the victim as a “social remedy” to the crime, further impeding the ability of rape victims to seek justice. Zina laws violate international legal standards guaranteeing individuals the right to have control over matters relating to their sexuality, free from coercion, discrimination, and violence. Most of the women and girls we interviewed were suspected of having committed zina offenses, leading prosecutors to commit them to “social rehabilitation” facilities.
In addition to the zina laws, social and cultural norms regarding chastity, virginity, and “family honor,” and the stigma attached to unmarried women living alone, contribute to the detention of women and girls in these facilities. Libyan authorities treat adult women detained in social rehabilitation facilities like legal minors with little to no independent decision-making authority over their lives. Thus, the human rights of women and girls are subordinated to rigid social norms condoned and reinforced by the Libyan government.
While the number of detained women and girls in Libya’s social rehabilitation facilities is small—often less than one hundred—the abusive nature of these facilities and the egregious violations that occur within them require immediate action. Libya should immediately release all women and girls detained in social rehabilitation facilities, and instead establish purely voluntary shelters for women and girls in need of housing or protection from violence. These shelters should not compromise their privacy, autonomy, and freedom of movement. Any woman or girl suspected of a crime should receive due process protections, and if convicted should be released upon serving her sentence. The government must also take all appropriate measures to eliminate the discriminatory laws that lead to the detention of women and girls in these facilities in the first place.
This report is based on interviews conducted in Tripoli and Benghazi in April and May 2005 during Human Rights Watch’s first visit to Libya. During this three-week investigation, the authorities provided access to a wide range of high-level officials and allowed researchers to speak to prisoners and detainees in private. Government guides, however, escorted the delegation and monitored unofficial contact with individuals.
This report presents findings from brief visits to two social rehabilitation facilities in Libya: the Social Welfare Home for Women in Tajoura, near Tripoli, and the Benghazi Home for Juvenile Girls. At both of these facilities, the directors questioned the women and girls about their conversations with Human Rights Watch researchers. The director of one of centers told detainees only to speak positively about the facility.
All of the names of women and girls whose cases are discussed have been changed to protect their privacy and to ensure they are not penalized for their comments. Identifying information for other individuals has been withheld in some cases for the same reasons.
The Libyan government submitted a response to these findings in January 2006 attached as an appendix to this report. The statement, prepared by the General People’s Committee of Foreign Liaison and International Cooperation, defends the detention of women and girls on the basis of Libya’s “religious, sociological, cultural and legal” norms. However, the statement concluded that the appropriate authorities would take these findings into consideration and investigate the conditions in these institutions according to national and international standards.
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