Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) and allied armed groups seized Damascus in December 2024, bringing an end to the sixty-one–year rule of the Bashar al-Assad government. One year has now passed since Ahmed Al-Sharaa (Al-Jolani) assumed power. Yet this year has resulted in an especially devastating toll for women: killings, abductions, systematic sexual violence and escalating social repression have all sharply increased.
According to reporting by ANHA, field observations, civil society documentation and data from international human rights organizations indicate that violence against women has taken on a systematic character over the past year.
Since 8 December 2024, a total of 650 women, including 29 children, have lost their lives due to various causes such as remnants of war, armed attacks, sectarian assaults, domestic violence and broader societal violence. The highest number of cases were recorded in Aleppo, Damascus, Homs, Hama, Damascus countryside, Daraa (Dera), Tartus, Quneitra (Kuneytra), Latakia (Lazkiye), Sweida (Suwayda) and Deir ez-Zor (Dêrazor), regions that remain under the control of Damascus.
Aleppo: 31 women, 2 children
Damascus: 14 women, 1child
Homs: 34 women, 8 children
Hama: 36 women, 3 children
Daraa: 23 women, 5 children
Latakia: 16 women were killed
Deir ez-Zor: 28 women, 2 children
Sweida: 34 women, 2 children
Damascus countryside: 29 women, 1 child
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) documented that 127 women were killed by armed groups affiliated with the Syrian Transitional Government. The Syrian Network for Human Rights (SNHR) reported that more than one hundred women were killed in coastal-area massacres alone, while Sweida recorded the killing of 130 women.
Abductions and disappearances on the rise
The period following February 2025 saw a sharp increase in the abduction of Alawite women in Homs, Hama and the coastal areas, where they were targeted on sectarian grounds. In several regions, the abduction of women has become a method of pressure and control used by armed groups.
In July, the attack on Sweida resulted in the kidnapping of around one hundred Druze women, and no information has emerged about their fate.
Figures compiled by Amnesty International and the Syrian Platform for Ending Women’s Abductions indicate that at least thirty-six Alawite women between the ages of three and forty were kidnapped by unidentified individuals in Latakia, Tartus, Homs and Hama within this period. Five of these women, along with three children, were taken in full view of the public. Despite the scale of the incidents, the government has not opened any investigation.
Sweida has recorded sixty-five abductions of women since the beginning of the year. The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights reported that ninety-seven people, most of them women, have been missing or abducted since December 2024, while noting that the real number is likely much higher.
Women pushed out of decision-making spaces
A period marked by escalating conflict has further weakened women’s presence in public and political life. Beyond being used as instruments of pressure by armed groups in certain regions, women have also faced severe restrictions in their social environments.
Compulsory headscarves and face veils, along with gender segregation in universities, have become widespread measures, while women’s movements and rights organizations have been rendered largely ineffective.
Data from population registration centers indicates that despite the presence of nearly eleven million women in the country, their representation in governance remains strikingly limited. The cabinet includes only one female minister, Minister of Women’s Affairs and Social Affairs Hind Qebewat. As a result, women’s representation at the ministerial level stands at just 5 percent, far below the minimum 30 percent quota set by international standards.
Women’s mobilization
Restrictions on the right to organize have forced most women’s initiatives to operate through individual efforts. Within these constraints, the “Herair Başan Movement” was established in Sweida on 22 November with the aim of drawing attention to abducted women and strengthening women’s participation in social life. The movement has become the first women’s organization in the region.
In addition, a special women’s military unit composed of 500 women has been formed. Military training, self-defense and first-response courses are being provided to women at bases in Shekaa, Shehba, Qerya and Milih.