Women are forced to undergo invasive pregnancy and virginity controls, they are assaulted and molested, violated with truncheons and bottles. Many pregnant women then miscarry. Such horrors are routine in Turkish jails. In order to break the spirit of Kurdish men, police threaten to bring in their mothers or sisters or fiances and rape them in their presence. Police also raid homes of Kurdish women whose menfolk are on the run, and strip-search them to find out if the men have recently visited.
Turkish soldiers use Kurdish women as a weapon.
By undermining the women, the entire society is threatened. By degrading women, society itself becomes degraded and dehumanized. In traditional Turkish and Kurdish society, the worst insult committed against women is rape. In such a society, death is a thousand times more preferable to rape. Many members of the special teams, contra-guerrillas, and village guards have kidnapped and raped Kurdish women on numerous occasions.