💬 In a panel discussion titled “Transitional Justice and Gender-Sensitive Accountability,” moderated by Julia Jamal, a member of the Syrian Feminist Lobby, the session hosted legal expert Joumana Seif, the Executive Director of The Day After organization Moatasem Syoufi, and the Executive Director of the Syrian Feminist Lobby Rima Fleihan. In her intervention, Fleihan emphasized that any transitional justice process in Syria must be gender-sensitive, addressing the compounded violations women have endured—from detention and enforced disappearance to sexual violence and forced displacement, as well as legal, social, and economic marginalization. She pointed out that women have not only been victims but also active agents in confronting the consequences of the conflict, carrying the burden of livelihood and the pursuit of truth, while facing repeated violations without adequate protection. She affirmed that gender justice lies at the heart of transitional justice, and that sustainable peace cannot be achieved without the genuine participation of women, accountability for all parties involved in violations, redress for survivors, and the integration of women’s issues into the constitution, laws, and justice institutions.
📘 The conference also discussed the Gender-Sensitive Reconstruction Manual as a strategic tool to guide public policy toward ensuring women’s equal participation in shaping Syria’s future—its constitution, laws, and institutions. The conference concluded with a set of recommendations aimed at reinforcing international commitments to support gender-sensitive reconstruction in Syria and to ensure women’s participation in all aspects of reconstruction and decision-making. It also called for the creation of an enabling environment for collaboration between organizations, networks, and platforms advocating for women’s rights and Syrian women decision-makers. The recommendations were presented at the conclusion of the conference to the European Commission and international stakeholders.
I would like to thank EFI and the
organizations that contributed to organizing this conference for their kind
invitation.
My intervention addresses transitional justice in Syria from a gender-sensitive
perspective.
In preparing this intervention, I relied on several reports by the Syrian
Feminist Lobby, including: Gender-Sensitive Transitional Justice (2019),
Death is Not the Worst Part—It’s Also the Waiting (on enforced
disappearance), We Didn’t Say Goodbye to Anyone (on forced
displacement), and the Gender and Disability report (2023/2024). I also
drew on discussions from the Transitional Justice Workshop held by the Lobby in
2023. These reports were supported by the EuroMed Feminist Initiative.
Transitional justice is not merely a
sequence of legal procedures; it is a complex, multidimensional process
employing various tools to address the legacy of gross violations committed
during periods of conflict or authoritarian rule.
In the Syrian context, transitional justice faces additional challenges due to
the complexity of the conflict and the intersection of gender, ethnic, and
sectarian factors, in addition to mass displacement and institutional collapse.
Transitional justice in Syria must take gender-sensitive approaches into
account to ensure comprehensive justice that does not marginalize women
survivors, women among victims’ families, those subjected to sexual and
gender-based violence, women with disabilities, or others from marginalized
groups.
Women and Transitional Justice
As you know, Syrian women have been subjected to various forms of violations,
including sexual violence, enforced disappearance, the loss of a breadwinner,
as well as killing, abduction, child marriage, forced displacement, and
violence.
A gender perspective in transitional justice is essential because it reveals
the disproportionate impact of conflict on women and men. It also highlights
invisible crimes and the far-reaching consequences of violations, such as the
social and economic effects after the disappearance of a family provider.
In many cases, women took on the roles of providers, activists, and support
network leaders, and faced heavy social, legal, psychological, security, and
economic burdens in the absence of legal and social protection.
Main Gender-Related Violations:
• Arbitrary detention and enforced disappearance.
According to the Syrian Feminist Lobby’s report Death is Not the Worst
Part—It’s Also the Waiting, enforced disappearance has consequences that
particularly affect women. Mothers, wives, sisters, and children bear the
direct burden of disappearance and the agony of waiting. Women often lead the
search for truth and for their loved ones’ fate, while also shouldering the
responsibility of caring for children and protecting other family members. In
this search, they are exposed to many dangers, including arbitrary detention,
enforced disappearance, sexual assault, financial and sexual extortion, and
other forms of violence.
• Women are often forced to deal with intermediaries or unknown parties in
dangerous locations without any guarantees.
• This exposes them to physical and psychological abuse and extortion.
• Psychological and social impacts on women:
• In many cases, mothers, wives, and children suffer severely without specialized
psychological support. According to our reports, there are symptoms of PTSD,
grief, and depression that extend to children.
• Women bear the burden of losing the breadwinner and having to provide in
difficult social and economic conditions.
• They are exposed to stigma and social isolation.
• Economic and legal impacts:
• The loss of the breadwinner deepens poverty.
• Some are forced to sell personal belongings—even a wedding ring in one
case—to obtain information.
• Legal complexities prevent women from managing property or receiving salaries
due to the absence of legal proof of death.
• These effects are worsened by the continued ambiguity after 14 years of
conflict. Even after the fall of the regime, this issue has not been taken
seriously.
• Personal Status Law exacerbates the violation by granting custody of children
to the husband’s relatives, leaving women without legal authority.
Forced displacement, internal
displacement, and refuge due to fear of violations
According to testimonies in the Syrian Feminist Lobby’s report We Didn’t Say
Goodbye to Anyone, forced displacement had a deep and multifaceted impact
on women. It went beyond the loss of home or place, affecting the core of their
lives, their roles, and their social and economic status.
Psychologically and on a human level, displaced women suffered the loss of
family members and endured traumatic experiences before and during
displacement, such as shelling, siege, starvation, humiliation, and threats of
arrest and sexual violence. There was no psychological support to alleviate the
effects of these traumas. Many suffered from PTSD, chronic anxiety, insomnia,
deep sadness, loss of safety, and the absence of any real social support.
Socially and economically, families were torn apart. Women were forced into
roles for which they were unprepared, having to make complex legal and
livelihood decisions in the absence of family support due to displacement or
loss. They also faced legal obstacles in obtaining identification documents,
proving property ownership, or registering their children in school—all of
which deepened their marginalization.
Women lost their sources of income and faced severe difficulties in finding
employment while daily needs like rent, food, and medical care accumulated.
Many were forced to live in overcrowded camps lacking basic necessities and
dignity, where they were also exposed to harassment and various forms of abuse,
increasing their vulnerability to exploitation and violence.
Legally and in terms of rights, their properties were seized by force or
unlawfully taken. They were not compensated and suffered from structural
discrimination in personal status laws that deprived many of them of child
custody, inheritance, or the right to manage family property.
Thus, forced displacement was not merely a spatial event in women’s lives; it
became a profound turning point marked by pain, deprivation, isolation, and
ongoing violation.
Other forms of sexual and
gender-based violence women experienced:
• Sexual and physical violence in prisons, detention centers, abduction sites,
and beyond.
• Sexual exploitation and slavery of women and children.
• Forced and child marriages amid absence of law and protection.
• Denial of education, property, and inheritance rights for women.
• The killing of women under the pretext of “honor crimes,” especially in the
absence of law and widespread weapons.
• The recruitment of underage girls, human trafficking, and the use of women as
hostages.
Intersection of gender and
disability
Women with disabilities face double marginalization due to the lack of
supportive environments and services, and because of the patriarchal nature of
society. They live in isolation and do not have adequate access to services or
employment.
The rising rates of disability due to the conflict necessitate prioritizing
this group within transitional justice.
How can transitional justice be
gender-sensitive?
• By involving affected individuals of all genders in the pathways and
mechanisms of transitional justice.
• By ensuring that laws and justice mechanisms are gender-sensitive as a legal
and political priority when designing and implementing transitional justice
tools.
• By understanding women’s experiences through an intersectional lens and
analyzing the structural causes and consequences of the violations they have
endured.
• By learning from other countries’ experiences where women were either
marginalized or actively included in post-conflict contexts, and comparing the
recovery outcomes.
Gender justice as part of
transitional justice
There is no real transitional justice without gender justice. Justice must
include all types of violations committed against women, including sexual
violence in conflict and the political exclusion of women.
For transitional justice to be gender-sensitive, it must guarantee women’s
meaningful—not symbolic—participation; ensure accountability for all
perpetrators from all sides; include legal reforms; and establish truth-seeking
commissions that involve women and expose the facts.
After the departure of the former
regime and the rise of the current authority:
Despite the issuance of a decision to establish a Transitional Justice
Commission, justice remains limited to crimes committed by the regime, without
accountability for other parties.
There has been no real start to the transitional justice process in the
country.
Although some women have been appointed to official positions in the current
authority, their roles are mostly symbolic and superficial. Participation
remains weak amid persistent patriarchal mindsets and the exclusion of active
women from all forms of public life currently available.
Violations continue, particularly against women—including kidnappings in the
Syrian coast and other areas—with no serious response from security forces, no
protection shelters, and no entities providing psychological, medical, or legal
support to survivors.
Serious media violations have also been recorded, further harming survivors and
increasing hate speech against feminist activists and all those who criticize
the current authority.
The impact of kidnapping extends beyond the women affected and their families;
it also influences women’s lifestyles in those communities, causing isolation
and an inability to meet daily needs due to fear of leaving the home and the
absence of safety.
We have also witnessed horrific crimes and violations in the Syrian coast,
Sahnaya, Jaramana, and Sweida, including sectarian-based assaults. No
investigation results have been released, no perpetrators have been held
accountable, and the incidents have been met with negligence and incitement by
official media. Government statements have widened the gap between Syrian
communities. A policy of denial and neglect continues—contrary to the
principles of transitional justice—and perpetuates violations.
Recommendations for gender-sensitive
transitional justice:
• Include sexual and gender-based violence in trials and judicial mechanisms.
• Activate the role of women in truth commissions.
• Ensure reparations are gender-sensitive—legally, psychologically, and
socially.
• Design specific programs for survivors of sexual violence.
• Integrate women into decision-making and rehabilitation efforts.
• Use art, literature, cinema, and media as tools for acknowledgment and
healing.
• Provide legal and social recognition for affected women, providers, and women
with disabilities.
• Involve women in designing and implementing transitional justice programs.
• Provide financial compensation, psychological and social support, and
symbolic recognition.
• Train personnel on gender analysis when documenting or addressing violations
and their effects.
What is required of the transitional
authority today?
• Amend the decree establishing the Transitional Justice Commission to include
all violations committed by all parties—there can be no true justice without
justice for all victims and accountability for all perpetrators.
• Pass laws that combat violence against women and promote equality.
• Train law enforcement and police forces on international human rights
instruments, and support these institutions with academically and practically
specialized personnel. Train police and judiciary on ethical and professional
handling of cases of sexual and gender-based violence.
• Ensure women’s effective participation in justice mechanisms.
• Establish specialized units for gender-based violence.
• Design sustainable, gender-sensitive reparation programs.
• Support feminist civil society, and utilize feminist and legal expertise to
support the transitional justice process.
• Ensure transparent monitoring of justice institutions’ performance.
• Draft a new constitution that guarantees legal equality and balanced
representation.
• Empower women in decision-making positions, justice bodies, institutions, and
the judiciary.
• Expand the role of feminist organizations and experts in governmental,
legislative, and executive work.
Finally
Excluding women from transitional justice is not just an individual
injustice—it undermines the foundations of sustainable peace.
Gender justice requires redefining the concepts of fairness, dignity, and
recognition from the perspective of women and their lived experiences.
As one witness said in our report on enforced disappearance:
“We don’t just want to know the fate
of our loved ones—we want to be part of rebuilding the meaning of what is
just.”
