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Women and children in Iraq are still coming under attack despite overall security improvements over the past year, a United Nations human rights report said on Wednesday. "Gender-based violence is affecting women, children and young adults," the report by the UN Assistance Mission for Iraq (UNAMI) said, citing evidence from the second half of 2008. "Increasing reports show that women and children are becoming victims of sexual violence, forced marriages, 'honour crimes' and trafficking," it said. The overall level of violence has fallen sharply in the past two years as US and Iraqi forces have flooded into former insurgent strongholds and allied with local tribes and former fighters to help keep the peace. But violence against women remains high, with UNAMI reporting that "the vast majority of Iraqi women still face at least one form of domestic violence on a regular basis." "Women are victims of rape, sex trafficking, forced and early marriages, murder, abduction for sectarian or criminal reasons; many are driven or forced into prostitution," the report said. "To escape the cycle of violence many women turn to suicide, sending a clear message of despair to their society." The report also warned of rising violence against children and young adults, including their increasing use as suicide bombers by armed groups. "Children and young adults are exposed to a wide range of grave violations including death and injury from sectarian violence, military operations and unexploded ordnances and other remnants of war," it said. It also expressed concern about the treatment of the more than 1,000 children it said were being held in Iraqi detention and reformatories at the end of 2008, saying many of them may have been abused by security forces. "The Iraqi criminal justice system places an overwhelming weight on confessions, thus detained children are almost inevitably subjected to threats, ill-treatment and torture by investigators with the aim of obtaining a confession," it said. The United Nations greatly reduced its presence in Iraq after a suicide truck bombing at its Baghdad headquarters in 2003 killed 22 people, including top Iraq envoy Sergio Vieira de Mello. But in March the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF) said it would reopen its Baghdad office, citing improved security.