This year the International Day to Eliminate Violence against Women is being celebrated under the global theme “Orange the World: End Violence against Women Now!” The call for urgent action is utterly significant as women in war zones continue to suffer from sexual violence, including in Syria.

Since the beginning of the Syrian uprisings in March 2011, and their subsequent evolution to an international armed conflict, numerous NGO and UN reports have documented thousands of shocking cases of sexual violence that Syrian women endured including rape, sexual torture, forced abortion, and forced nudity.

The Syrian regime remains the biggest perpetrator of sexual violence, most of which have taken place in detention. Unfortunately, the Assad regime still arrests thousands of Syrian women who face the grave risk of sexual violence.

Since the International Criminal Court (ICC) has no jurisdiction over Syria, there has been impunity for international crimes committed in-country. Russian and Chinese vetoes have ensured that no member of the Syrian government can be tried before the tribunal. However, several criminal complaints have been filed in Europe based on the principle of universal jurisdiction. The first criminal complaint on sexual and gender-based violence in detention facilities was filed with the German federal prosecutor on 17 June 2020 by seven Syrian women and men.

Even when speaking out, as my PhD dissertation shows, stigma surrounding sexual violence persists, subjecting women to increased risk of further violence, including, but not limited to, social exclusion, forced marriage and murder. Many Syrian women, therefore, remain silent.

It is thus essential that gender-sensitive investigation procedures are available in the justice sector and that women can speak up without facing further violence. This can be accomplished through the inclusion of more female practitioners and gender experts throughout the litigation process, community-based interventions that tackle social discriminations, and services that address the special needs of survivors. These are among the demands of 80 feminists and human rights organisations as part of the Syrian Road to Justice campaign.

Significantly, Syrian women activists —some of whom are survivors themselves— and women’s NGOs have played a key role in these processes, and their impact has been tremendous in addressing the social, political and financial difficulties that survivors of sexual violence endure.  

While any resolution to the Syrian conflict must address the issue of accountability for sexual violence and ensure women’s access to justice, reparations and compensations, it must ultimately also involve Syrian women as active agents and break the narrative that reduces the role of women to sheer victims.