On International Women Day: Syrian Women Major Victims of Armed Groups Atrocities

DAMASCUS, (ST) -Syria marks International Women Day amid challenges produced by the unjust global war waged against the country. The crimes of the armed terrorist takfiri groups mainly against Syrian women have targeted their existence and the successes they have achieved over the past decades at the social, political and economic levels.

Syrian women have been major victims of the ongoing tragic events in the country as many of them were exposed to serious violations by the terrorist groups targeting their vital role in society, said Kinda al-Shammat, the Minister of Social Affairs.

 In a statement marking Women International Day, al-Shammat said that “women under the extra ordinary circumstances in Syria are being forced by the terrorist groups to adopt certain mentality far from the open-minded and moderate culture of the Syrian society. They are prevented from education and deprived of their rights in the social, economic, legal and political fields. They are even taken as human shields, killed and get flogged in some areas under the control of the armed takfiri groups.”

Al-Shammat added that 11 women have committed suicide because of the oppression practiced against them by the armed terrorist groups under the deadly silence of the human rights organizations which claim that they defend women’s rights.

“Syrian women have also been victims of sexual abuses under the so-called “jihad Nikah”.  Girls under age have been raped and killed in several areas like what happened in the countryside of Damascus, Lattakia and Homs,” stressed al-Shammat.

However, according to al-Shammat, the ministry has spared no effort to check and document these violations and prepare necessary reports in this respect.

She affirmed women’s role in attaining peace and ending the war particularly after 15 Syrian ladies from government and civil society bodies were elected to represent Syrian women within a committee aiming to uncover and document violations against women and to file cases against perpetrators and the countries supporting them.

Great efforts are also being exerted by the Syrian Commission of Family Affairs to alleviate the suffering of women and families affected by the crisis through implementing psychological and social support programs within the temporary sheltering houses.

According to the Head of the Syrian Family Affair’s Commission Insaf Hamad, the commission is keen to build women’s abilities and enhance their awareness about all forms of human trafficking, particularly after violations against girls under age were traced and proved.  

Programs are being set in cooperation with the Ministry of Agriculture and Agrarian Reform as well as the Ministry of Environment Affairs aiming to help women, who run families, to improve their conditions by financing some productive projects, said Dr. Hamad, referring also to the commission’s cooperation with the Social Affairs Ministry on providing care and rehabilitation to violence victims and to women who survived the atrocities of the terrorist groups.

The international Community and human rights organizations, now more than ever, should pay attention to the violations of the armed groups against women in Syria and to undertake the responsibility of protecting them by joining the Syrian government’s efforts to fight terrorism and by pressuring terrorism supporting countries to stop sending terrorists to Syria and promote takfiri thinking in the country.   

H. Mustafa