“Disappearance” or “Abduction”? “Security Breakdown” or “Systematic Policy”? Incidents of Women’s Abduction after Liberation
Executive Summary:
This paper examines the issue of disappearances in Syria following the fall of the Assad regime as a highly sensitive file in which security, political, social, and media dimensions intersect, and which has been re-instrumentalized within contexts of both internal and external polarization.
The paper begins by shedding light on security conditions during transitional periods, in which violence may re-emerge in new forms, former actors may become involved again, and police institutions often suffer from weakness and limited capacity to enforce law and order. Fragile institutional structures also allow certain actors to exploit this security vacuum and to invest in fear as a means of mobilizing ethnic or communal groups and reusing them politically, with the aim of reproducing new forms of authority through the manipulation and amplification of anxieties. In such contexts, rumors and false news are employed to reshape public opinion and construct new collective identities.
In Syria, the situation is not substantially different from that of other countries experiencing comparable transitions. An analysis of the transitional context, together with four applied case studies (the Commission for the Missing, social media posts, the “Stop the Kidnapping of Syrian Women” campaign, and Western media coverage), indicates that incidents of disappearance and abduction are not new phenomena within Syrian society. Rather, they represent a continuation of patterns of violence and crime that existed prior to 2011, intensified during the years of conflict, and re-emerged in different forms in the post-liberation phase, benefiting from fragile security conditions, widespread weapons, and the disintegration of previous control mechanisms. The majority of disappearance cases are driven by criminal, social, and economic motives and do not—based on available evidence—amount to a systematic or sectarian policy, despite the existence of genuine abduction cases, some of which are linked to ransom, extortion, or human trafficking.
The findings reveal a selective focus within social media and certain human rights discourses on cases involving women from specific sectarian backgrounds, while similar cases affecting women, men, and children from other communities are largely ignored. This selectivity contributes to the politicization of fear, the amplification of rumors, the deepening of social divisions, the erosion of trust in human rights work and emerging institutions, and the reframing of criminal acts as sectarian political crimes aimed at humiliating or exacting revenge against particular groups.
The paper concludes that multiple factors lie behind the disappearance of many women, including security breakdowns; the resurgence of kidnapping and robbery gangs that have exploited the weakness of the security system; and the persistence of social and legal norms—such as so-called “marriage of the abducted” and lenient treatment of “honor crimes”—that may push women to flee their families. These dynamics are compounded by dire economic conditions that render women more vulnerable to exploitation in the absence of meaningful support and protection. Social tensions, low levels of trust, and fears of retaliation further create an environment in which rumors are readily believed, reinforcing claims of sectarian targeting and attempts to solicit international intervention.
Ultimately, the paper emphasizes that protecting women cannot be reduced to a purely security-based or rhetorical approach. Instead, it requires a comprehensive pathway that links security sector reform, transitional justice, social and economic protection, information management, and the combating of disinformation. Responsible handling of this file—free from exaggeration, denial, or politicization—is a fundamental prerequisite for strengthening social peace, protecting victims, and preventing the instrumentalization of women’s suffering as a tool of political conflict in an extremely fragile transitional phase.
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مديرة الوحدة المجتعية في مركز الحوار السوري، بكالوريوس في الهندسة المدنية من جامعة دمشق، ماجستير في حماية اللاجئين والهجرة القسرية من جامعة لندن، باحثة مهتمة في قضايا المرأة والهجرة والمجتمع المدني
بكالوريوس في قسم الفلك وعلوم الفضاء من جامعة أنقرة، مهتم بالشأن التركي وعلاقته بقضايا اللاجئين السوريين، ونشر وشارك في إعداد عدد من التقارير والمقالات حول هذا الموضوع ضمن الوحدة المجتمعية في مركز الحوار السوري
