Pleas for Release of Women Detained in Tindouf Camps

On the occasion of the International Women’s Day, two NGos have launched an urgent appeal calling the international community to take action to help release the women who are forcibly detained in the camps of Tindouf.
The International Movement for the Support of the Moroccan Sahara and the Completion of the Kingdom’s Territorial Integrity and the League of Supporters of the Moroccan Sahara Autonomy have urged the international community to intervene to lift the blockade imposed on women detained in the Tindouf camps.
In a joint statement issued Saturday, March 9, both associations have urged the UN Secretary General, Ban Ki Moon, as well as international organizations to intervene for the release of women imprisoned in the Tindouf camps. They also condemned the plight of women in these camps, citing as an instance the wife of human rights activist Mustapha Salma Ould Sidi Mouloud.
Likewise, the two NGOs denounced the extortion methods practiced in the camps, including the compulsory deportation of children far away from their parents and families and their indoctrination in foreign countries.

Sahrawi women in the indouf camps continue to suffer inhumane and barbaric practices such as slavery, rape and forced enrolment in military training camps in Algeria and Cuba, the release said.
The two NGOs urged the international community to take action to enable these women to reunite with their families in the Moroccan southern provinces and have access to the social, medical and educational services they need.
It is no longer acceptable to exploit women and to deprive them of the right to education and health and social services. Democratic forces and human rights advocates need to act quickly to lift the blockade imposed on all the innocent persons imprisoned or sequestered by the Polisario in the Algerian desert, the NGOs said.