Syria: Impediments to restoring basic needs for women and girls
This article is authored by Mehdi Hussain, research associate, Indian Council of World Affairs, New Delhi.
Syria’s political transformation after the fall of President Assad in December 2024 will be incomplete without a social transformation that addresses the plights of women and girls in the country. The reconstruction process will face challenges since the government has been under authoritarianism and has had conflicts for a long time. The conflict over the past 14 years has weakened State institutions.
The reconstruction and restoration of basic needs for women and girls stem from the fact that women constitute 49% of the total population, 3.2 million girls need education assistance, 2.1 million women need nutritional assistance, 1.62 million women are internally displaced, and 7.0 million women need gender-based violence (GBV) assistance. This surmounts the tasks of re-integration of women and girls through initiatives based on gender and women’s empowerment and agency.
According to ‘Voices from Syria 2024’, inflation, shortages of necessities, including water and food, and lack of employment worsen the situations of women and girls in 2023. Women and girls from economic vulnerability sections are increasingly subjected to different forms of GBV. The cases of denial of child custody, denial of inheritance, and denial of housing, land and property are common. With the rising cases of GBV, they generally resort to negative coping mechanisms, including silence, avoiding confrontation and leaving school.
A reduction in funds will hamper access to basic needs in humanitarian assistance and services that affect households to meet their basic needs and elevate women’s and girls’ risks of GBV. This will be complicated by growing insecurity and increasingly restricted movement. Family members, risks of sexual violence and kidnapping, and lack of accessible service points, among others, limit their movement. The sensitive and complex political situations may not be conducive for NGOs, civil societies and multilateral institutions to deliver humanitarian services in the country.
Thus, achieving gender equality programmes like the UNDP Syria’s capacity-building and education requires the creation of a safe environment free from threats to life and violence. However, such programmes have faced political, economic, and cultural barriers from being effectively implemented.
The recent trend of declining humanitarian assistance funds is leading to the closures of essential GBV services and other facilities, exposing the survivors of such violence to domestic and family abuses and crimes. It is creating a vicious cycle of violence by forcing these women and girls into child and forced marriage and child labour without any kind of support. Moreover, the lack of work opportunities does not leave them with any options to come out of this cycle. It is a stark reality for women and children who are displaced in camps; thereby, safe places have been significantly reduced.
Further, due to the existing gender norms and cultural factors, women and girls choose not to report violence for fear of being further harmed by the abuser and community. The prolonged conflicts have worsened their conditions. Thus, new gender-friendly laws must be supported by firmly implementing reformed State institutions or other new mechanisms.
The 2012 constitution, which guaranteed equal rights without discrimination of all citizens irrespective of sex, origin, language, religion, or creed (Article 33), suffered from a lack of political will, compounded by the impacts of the protracted conflict in the country. Thus, on the legal front, the post-Assad regime must bring domestic violence legislation for the first time and strengthen the will to fight gender-based violence. It must also introduce a specific provision for sexual harassment offences into the Penal Code or Labour Law.
The new government needs to introduce gender parity initiatives that lead towards modernisation, including a change in the provision of male guardianship over women in the Personal Status Law that requires a woman of 18 years of age (minimum age of marriage) to show to the judge the consent of a male guardian to her marriage. Then, a revision of the Nationality Law of 1969, which does not grant women the same rights as men to pass citizenship to their children or a foreign spouse, is a critical move towards gender parity. Syria ratified the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women; however, it addressed only a few aspects of gender justice. It should also comprehensively address significant gender inequalities highlighted in the Convention.
It remains to be seen whether current political developments could translate into legal transformations towards gender justice. The new leadership, under the Islamist group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham led by Ahmed al-Shara, has prompted hope as well as apprehension regarding equal opportunities for women and children. However, activists have raised concerns regarding the appointment of former al-Qaeda hardliners to senior positions within the new government. Further, there is only one woman member of the new administration.
The new government is responsible for creating favourable conditions in the legal and security environment for international service providers and NGOs to help vulnerable women and girls. Without authority’s fairness, the latter is reluctant to approach the judiciary for justice. Such a legal situation worsens the conditions of these women and girls who face discrimination outside the legal system due to persistent stereotypes from local customs and traditions for complaining against brothers or husbands.
Notwithstanding these challenges, women and girls have shown resilience to find means to navigate the barriers to supporting themselves and their families. The first step to restoring basic services to women and girls should be the constitutional recognition of their fundamental rights, without which they will be reduced to mere second-class citizens. Continued instability in the country makes implementing long-term solutions for their rights difficult, which is a major concern to any transformation. Strengthening institutions by rebuilding justice systems and ensuring gender sensitivity in law enforcement are the needs of the hour. In a patriarchal society such as in Syria, the issue of women and children cannot be addressed without educating men about gender equality. Thus, including women in the peacebuilding and nation-building processes will lead to more inclusive and long-term outcomes.
This article is authored by Mehdi Hussain, research associate, Indian Council of World Affairs, New Delhi.
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