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A Libyan justice ministry official denied late Wednesday a Human Rights Watch (HRW) report that the authorities were arbitrarily detaining women and girls indefinitely in "de facto prisons".
Libya rejects any discrimination against women, the official said, adding that it was protecting them against practices which the government wanted to eradicate.
The US-based global human rights group on Tuesday documented alleged abuses in the so-called protective homes for women and girls deemed by the authorities to be "vulnerable to engaging in moral misconduct."
These include violations of rights to liberty, freedom of movement, personal dignity, privacy and due process.
Libyan leader Moamer Kadhafi's regime is holding women and girls who have committed no crime, or who have completed a sentence, the report said, urging their immediate release.
It said some were there because they had been raped and then ostracised from their families for staining their "honour".
Officials transferred the majority of these women and girls to these facilities against their will, while those who came voluntarily did so because no genuine shelters for victims of violence exist in Libya, HRW said.
The justice ministry official, who declined to be identified, said a "social rehabilitation institutions" was a place of refuge for women and girls who had no honest way of earning a living and no family links.
"They are victims of incidents related to honour and morals and their relatives have refused to allow them to live in the family home," the official said.
"This institution is a refuge for women, a protection against exploitation and revenge."
The official accused HRW of basing its report on "certain psychologically vulnerable women and a misunderstanding of Libyan laws."
Farida Deif of HRW, the report's London-based author, said Tuesday, "How can they be called shelters when most of the women and girls we interviewed told us they would escape if they could?"
The inmates were not allowed to leave the compound and are sometimes subjected to long periods of solitary confinement for trivial reasons, HRW said.
Most endure invasive virginity examinations, are given no education except weekly religious instruction and typically have no legal representation, the group said.
The report added that the exit requirements were "arbitrary and coercive", with a male relative taking custody, or marriage, often to a stranger, the only way out.
HRW said the Libyan government promised to investigate the alleged abuses during a meeting with the group in January.
HRW welcomed the move and urged Libya to establish purely voluntary shelters for women and girls at risk of violence.
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AFP 012340 GMT 03 06
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