Alex Martin Astley is a freelance journalist based in Beirut. He covers conflict, foreign policy, and social justice issues. He has contributed to New Lines,The New Arab,and other publications.
There is a blue notebook that Abu Ali always keeps on his desk. It is easy to miss among the clutter of civil war memorabilia filling his office in the shattered suburbs of Damascus. But to the widows of Hazeh—the neighborhood where Abu Ali serves as a community leader—the notebook is a lifeline.
Twelve names are scrawled down one of its pages. They belong to women whose husbands were either killed or went missing during Syria's 14-year civil war. Abu Ali is now partly responsible for all of them. There is no aid and only scant social welfare, so he musters and distributes what little charity he can.
Asma al-Khija's husband died fighting Bashar al-Assad's forces in Eastern Ghouta in 2013. Two years later, the regime came for her only son, Nour al-Din Dabbousi, while she was applying for his exemption from conscription. She has not heard any news of him in 10 years.
"They took my son at the recruitment office, and I don't know where he was imprisoned. I contacted the regime—but nothing," said al-Khija, staring at the cracked floor of Abu Ali's office. She was pale and wide-eyed, as if surprised by something.
Abu Ali filled the ensuing silence: "Every night she dreams that she will hear a knock at the door and that her son will be there."
There are tens of thousands of women in Syria still searching for their husbands, sons and brothers. They wait for news and demand justice. It is likely that most of those who vanished into Assad's prison network are buried in mass graves hidden across the country, waiting to be discovered after the regime murdered them.
Syria's civil war created many widows. In the Kafranbel district, located in the Idlib governorate of Northwest Syria, widowed women made up nearly a quarter of the 850,000 people living there during the war.
While Syrian women generally bore the brunt of the conflict, the widows and wives of the missing have been particularly affected. With their family breadwinners gone and many of them displaced by war and unable to work, they experienced poverty rates as high as 90% during the conflict.
How the women—survivors of the Assad regime and other armed groups—fare in the new Syria will be a key test for the government under Interim President Ahmad al-Shara'a. While he has promised inclusive governance and the protection of women's rights, many questions remain.
Six months since the fall of the regime, widows are still one of the country's most vulnerable groups. As it is difficult to make their voices heard, these women risk falling by the wayside.
The hope is that a successful transition can lift all Syrians. When U.S. President Donald Trump announced that the United States would revoke economic sanctions on Syria, parties erupted in town squares across the country. Within 24 hours, vendors were selling keychains and other souvenirs bearing Trump's portrait in the souk by the Umayyad Mosque in Damascus.
But for Rasha al-Masri, there was little cause for celebration. Her husband died of asphyxiation from a regime sarin gas attack on Eastern Ghouta in 2013, leaving her and their five children alone. Assad's military murdered hundreds of innocent people that day when it launched rockets loaded with the deadly nerve agent into al-Masri's neighborhood.
"Let's say sanctions are lifted and everything becomes cheaper. Bread is cheap and food is cheap, but I, like this sister," she nodded towards al-Khija, "We still won't have any money to buy it. I don't have an income … We need compensation. We need help."
In the bombed-out buildings of Hazeh, al-Masri and al-Khija—like most widows—still live in penury. There is no running water or electricity, cooking gas is unaffordable and a consistent supply of food and medicine has long been a luxury.
It is a life of waiting in bread lines, burning plastic in winter to stay warm and the humiliation of begging for meager support from neighbors who have little to share.
Recently, Al-Masri's son lost three fingers after picking up an unexploded ordnance in Jobar. The neighboring district is one of the worst damaged from the conflict, littered with the explosive remnants of war—a major hindrance to reconstruction. The only part of her son's medical treatment al-Masri could afford was the gauze.
"We are below rock bottom," al-Masri said. "My daughter turned 18 two days ago … she told me, 'Mom, I'm going to die of hunger.' I couldn't even bring her anything. Not even bread … See how they humiliate us, how they wipe the floor with us?" she added.
There was an undertone of anger and defiance in her voice.
Syrian women have always borne the inequalities of their society. Even before Syria's ruinous war, women had fewer rights than men and less representation in politics. Honor killings remain common and are not classified as murder under Syria's legal system, allowing perpetrators to get away with much shorter sentences. Many women needed to provide sexual favors to survive—an ugly norm particularly prevalent in displacement camps for widows and orphans.
How the women—survivors of the Assad regime and other armed groups—fare in the new Syria will be a key test for the government under Interim President Ahmad al-Sharaa.
- Alex Martin Astley
These and other types of sexual and gender-based violence rose dramatically during the conflict—a trend across Syria. Rape was another weapon of war regularly deployed by Assad's army.
A few days after the regime's fall, I visited the notorious Palestine Branch, a prison in Damascus previously operated by Syrian intelligence. In one storage room there was a pile of children's shoes. Former inmates said they were for the children born there.
Their mothers were left pregnant by the guards who raped them during their detention.
Back in Abu Ali's office, a woman poked her head in the door to make inquiries. "She's also a widow," al-Masri said with an ironic smile. "There are lots of widows here."
Al-Masri says she wants to work. But caring for her five children, on top of nerve inflammation and high blood pressure that is difficult to consistently treat due to medicine shortages, is exceedingly difficult.
Such experiences risk leaving behind a segment of the population most at-risk. While legal experts and civil society advocates argue that Syria has a rare opening to make meaningful progress toward gender equality and women's empowerment, the transitional government could miss this window of opportunity if it postpones needed reforms.
Civil society leaders like Salma al-Sayyad, the director of Nissan—a Syrian NGO supporting women affected by the war—stress the importance of this moment. Her organization provides vocational training to help women find work, alongside legal advice to prevent exploitation and to help women obtain identification papers for their families. With their husbands not yet confirmed dead, many women are stuck in legal limbo, making it harder to acquire property or employment.
"There are a large number of women who have not received any kind of assistance because this task is the responsibility of the government and small … civil society organizations cannot do it," Sayyad said.
The hope is that Syria's anticipated economic recovery will grant the new government the capacity to assist all those affected by war. Until then, people like Abu Ali and a handful of civil society organizations must try and fill the gap.
"What are we waiting for?" al-Masri said shortly before leaving. "Sometimes I say to myself, 'Oh God, I hope I wake up dead, me and the children.' There must be a solution."
