She reports that during her thirty day incommunicado detention in Diyarbakir Gendarmerie headquarters, she was slapped, kicked, subjected to sexual insults, stripped of her clothes and hosed with ice-cold water. Women are also often tortured because of their association with suspected terrorists. For example, Sirin Abi was stripped completely naked and sexually molested in front of her husband Ferzinde in order to force him to sign a pre-written confession. For women detainees, threats of rape often are compounded by police taunts that rape will deprive women of their virginity and honor, prevent them from marrying and cause them to be ostracized by their families and communities. Police emphasis on virginity in the harassment and abuse of female detainees also has led them to use the threat or performance of forced virginity exams to harass, humiliate, intimidate, frighten, punish and torture women detainees.
Police use the findings of virginity exams to harass women.
They were tortured and interrogated about how they knew the man who had been buried. This outrageous argument rests on the assumption that only women who can prove their virginity prior to an alleged incident of rape can successfully bring rape charges against the police. The social stigma attached to having been forcibly tested for virginity is so great that many women do not report such tests, making it difficult to estimate what numbers are involved. Although the actual extent of the abuse is unknown, interviews with doctors, lawyers and local women and human rights activists reveal that the threat of forced virginity exams follows women throughout their lives. Many are organizing to defend their rights to protest against violations and to campaign for justice, equality and freedom.