International Day for the Elimination of Viol*ence against Women | Syrian women struggle with escalating viol*ence
Today, November 25, the world marks the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women. However, violence committed against Syrian women has been escalating in light of the ongoing war and its scourges.
Despite the spread of education, modern means of communication and the scores of local and international laws criminalising acts of violence in general, the pace of violence is on the rise in many communities, specifically acts of violence practiced against women. Statistics and reports indicate to alarming increase in atrocities against women, including kidnaps, rape, verbal abuses, harassment and killing.
Such atrocities are still practiced in communities claiming that they cling to democracy and comply with laws designed to put an end to violence. Under the rule of totalitarian regimes, like in Syria, the situation is more disastrous. Meanwhile, violence continues against Syrian women, particularly in contested and fought over areas, where women are killed and sexually and socially exploited, while “symbolic” laws have failed so far to stop such forms of violence or hold perpetrators accountable.
We, at the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR), express our rejection of all attempts to exploit women and strongly condemn and denounce the escalating rates of violence practiced against women, because of colour, language and race. We stress that the rights of all segments and constituent of Syrian societies must be respected without exclusion or marginalisation.
SOHR would like to bring to mind the fact that Syrian women have been suffered the most from the scourges of bloody war in Syria, where Syrian women have endured unprecedented oppression and humiliation, although the Syrian society has been adherent to virtues and maintained a system of social values for decades.
Syrian women also fell victims to arbitrary arrests and forcibly disappearances, as SOHR has documented the arrest of 15,502 women and girls since the onset of the Syrian Revolution in 2011 until September 2022. The largest number of arrests of Syrian women was documented in 2013 when battles between rebel factions and regime forces reached the peak.
SOHR has also documented the death of 67 women under torture, among nearly 105,000 people who died under torture in regime prisons.
SOHR reaffirms that Syrian woman are still struggling with injustice, lack of gender equality, physical and verbal abuses and exploitation, as well as exclusion from political, economic and social events.
The Syrian Observatory calls upon the international community to support Syrian women’s efforts to counter violence and the policy of exclusion and marginalisation. We also call upon all international authorities to intensify their efforts to secure a better future for Syrian women who have been hard hit by dreadful living conditions and oppression practiced by the ruling authorities.
We call for keeping women, the most fragile element in all societies, away from conflicts, especially since all statistics set by SOHR and other humanitarian organisations confirm that Syrian women have been affected by the war the most, after the peaceful protests by Syrians, who dreamed of enjoying freedom, justice, equality and decent standard of living, having been turned into the most dramatic and violent conflict in the 21st Century.