In a regime where rapes and forced marriages for child brides are considered legitimate and with a lack of female medical staff the health of women is at high risk, especially now that women’s clinics supervised by male doctors in Raqqa are shut down by ISIS.

According to activists, ISIS has drastically restricted the work of male gynaecologists in accordance with its leaders’ belief that men and women should be kept apart at all costs.

The rights group Raqqa Is Being Slaughtered Silently reported threats and harassment towards doctors in Raqqa.

“A lot of doctors have [already] left, especially gynaecologists who were barred from practising their work and [threatened] with death,” said Abu Mohammed, the group’s founder.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said that according to sources all women’s clinics in Raqqa state overseen by men had been shut down.