They really mistreated the wife of the caretaker. She screamed that she was not in the march but they kept saying they didn’t care. One of the gendarmes told the caretaker to get a machete and cut off a small branch from a banana tree. Then they told her to put the branch inside her sex. They forced her poor husband to watch. Some of the gendarmes doing the raping had two ‘V’s [sergeant] and others had two bars [first lieutenant]. Later they took me and another girl to the Gendarme Academy. They left the caretaker’s wife and when we arrived we found two more girls already being held. We were all raped inside the Academy as well. The first night four gendarmes took us near the toilet area and raped all four of us. That night I was raped by four gendarmes. The next day they beat us from morning till night and then late at night I was raped by four different gendarmes. I saw the other three being raped right next to me. They made us take their sex into our mouths. I bled for several days following the rapes. During my time there I was beaten with iron bars, with batons and with the iron belt buckle of their red rope belts. They especially beat us on our thighs and bottoms. Things got a lot better after Wednesday when a gendarme from the Dioula tribe gave us, the women, clothes and told us that if anyone else tried to rape us, we should cry out. He gave us soap, helped us to find water and put guards in front of us to protect us. A twenty-two-year-old university student who was sexually abused inside the ENS by two FPI supporters described how she was handed over to the youths by the police: 87 After the teargas became too much we decided to come out from where we were hiding [inside the ENS]. As we came out, the police and gendarmes were there. I was arrested by two police, who started beating me the second they got hold of me. They kept saying, ‘but you’re a girl, what are you doing here.’ After beating me the police handed me over to some of the FPI youths who were hanging around and said, ‘here’s another one, go do what you want with her.’ The FPI youths dragged me in between two parked cars. Nearby I could see two other girls, totally naked, being raped by other FPI youths. The youths ordered me to go inside the room and I begged them to spare me. When I refused they started beating me and ripping my clothes off. Some of the police or gendarmes walked by and said, ‘what’s your problem, why aren’t you doing it to her?’ and the youths said, ‘we can’t do it in front of you, our senior brothers.’ Then the police left. Then they pushed me down. I started to cry and to give them excuses. I said I’m a schoolgirl, a virgin, then I told them I was on my monthly period. By this time the FPI youths were about eight; there were five holding me down. They said things like, ‘it’s you who want to help the Burkinabé to be president.’ I recognized one of the FPI youths and asked for his help. At one point I cried, ‘Allah’ in Dioula and they became really angry, started beating me hard and said, ‘we’ll kill all of you Dioula.’ One boy told me to open my mouth and he tried to put his penis there. A few minutes later a policeman arrived and said I should be freed. The FPI youths complained and the police said, ‘look, we’re the ones who called you boys to use them in the first place, so we’re the ones who will say when they should be let go.’ Then the police escorted me to a police car and protected me from the youths who were trying to beat me as I went. I had black and blue marks on my back and legs, and fingernail marks on my chest from where one of the youths had clawed at me. Police cadets and officers within the National Police Academy subjected six women detainees to sexual abuse, torture and humiliation. Human Rights Watch interviewed four of these women, three of whom were forced to lie 87 Human Rights Watch interview, Abidjan, February 3, 2001. Human Rights Watch 46 August 2001, Vol. 13, No. 6(A)