Sir,

It was neither the Red Cross nor the Amnesty report which propelled the torture of Iraqi prisoners by Coalition troops onto the front pages. It was the photos. The torture carried on until the ocular proof made political embarrassment unavoidable.

The photos of rape and other sexual torture of women at Abu Ghraib prison and possibly elsewhere have still not been released to the public. As a result, rape has been referred to as "a soldier having sex with a woman prisoner" – yet again dismissing rape as consensual sex. Or when finally reported, this sexual torture is relegated to Section 2, page 10 (20 May).

While much has been made of women soldiers sexually abusing male prisoners -- acting like they’re one of the boys, as they are encouraged to do -- evidence of the widespread rape of women soldiers within the US military has similarly been ignored. Yet US National Public Radio mentioned 10 days ago that 100 US women soldiers claim to have been raped by their colleagues in Iraq. Why is this not pursued and reported here?

We wrote to all women MPs and peers asking them to press for full disclosure of what is happening to women in Iraq, both civilian and military, at the hands of both US and UK troops. We have not received a single reply.