A shocking report published by an Iranian state run newspaper reveals the dreadful conditions existing in a female rehabilitation center called Shafaq. The story, which undoubtedly reveals only a small fraction of what is going on in this horrible camp, says that instead of medically rehabilitating and caring for these ill-fated women, they are being subjected to the most brutal and abusive acts by the clerical regime elements of the camp’s management system.

Two young women died of lack of care in Shafaq Rehab Center

The story begins on March 29th after a number of phone calls were made. The women were gradually returning from Shafaq Camp after being released undergoing a 3 to 5 month rehabilitation process for their drug addiction.
According to accounts from a number of newly released women, the sanitary situation and living conditions in the camp were horrible. They said physical punishment and abuse, lack of food and medicine had contributed to the growing problem in the camp and exacerbated the dreadful conditions surrounding the camp.
One women said their daily food ration for breakfast was a small and thin layer of cheese as thick as a “Mobile SIM Card”. They never had any meat or anything that would supplement for protein. This was despite official pledges of sufficient nourishments and good food quality. Some women have talked about unspeakable treatment and harassment they had to live through at the hands of camp authorities.

Shafaq, a rehabilitation center, or a concentration camp?

Camp Shafaq, known to homeless addicted women as Shafaq concentration camp, was established in 2010 for rehabilitating addicted women. When it first was setup, the law required for an oversight by different governmental agencies including health department, the city hall and the drug administration Organization, but none of those agencies got involved and took any responsibility for the treatment of the patients.

Horrifying stories told by women held in the Camp

One of the woman who was only identified by her first name as Nasrin said, after being released from the camp last week, she had to look for a job to pay for the rent she owed while she was held in Camp Shafaq. But due to sever fatigue and lack of sufficient food, she got dizzy on day and fell from the staircase and broke her leg. She angrily kept saying “why should there be so many men working in an all-female camp? We were imprisoned there, we had no choice, but to submit and obey their orders. The authorities were sending male guards inside our rooms, we had no decent security, these men would impose their evil will upon us whenever they desired. We were only allowed to take a short 3-minute bath every other week and when our bath took longer than 3 minutes, the same men would enter the bath and beat us and drag us out before we had a chance to rinse out the soap from our bodies.”
Nasrin continued to say that two of her friends, Somayeh and Azar died due to lack of food while in the camp. She said many unspeakable things happened to them while they were detained in the camp, and then she wiped the tears off her face and walked away.
Another woman who identified herself as Goli said: “I hate Shafaq. If you want to learn about Shafaq, you must go there and see for yourself. Somayeh was drugged. She was given 30 grams of pure methadone until she finnaly overdosed. Azar died after they kicked her in her stomach. Her appendectomy perforated and was left there to die. We never had eggs for food. Where were you when our whole body was crawling with lice? You are coming now to find out what is happening in that evil place?”
A third woman called Narges said: “We were denied the minimum sanitary items for two weeks. We had to beg to receive our minimum needs, there were nobody to help us there. We had to submit ourselves to most degrading means to receive a pack of cigarettes… do you understand what I mean? What do you expect when they assign men to an all-female camp? Things got so bad and ugly one day that they had to fire one of the guards. Even our cook was a man.”

No one takes responsibility

They all had similar stories… every one of them complained of the sanitation in the camp. They said there was only one medic working there. They all talked about how brutally they were treated, beaten up and harassed and insulted. These inhumane actions were an inseparable part of the camp’s policy. Nobody told them about the horrible situation of the camp… and now they are back home and have to live that nightmare for the rest of their lives …