Thousands of Syrian women are believed to be incarcerated in the Assad regime's prisons. Little is known about their fate, but those who manage to escape tell tales of horror. Julia Hahn reports from Gaziantep
Keeping hope, but still waiting: Syrian feminism and a decade of revolution
March 4, 2021
Women sitting by a street are seen through a bullet hole in the northern Syrian city of Raqqa, 20/12/2020 (AFP)
AMMAN Razan Zaitouneh, Samirah al-Khalil, May Skaf, Fadwa Suleiman. These are the names of women who have become, with many other Syrian women, defining figures and symbols of the Syrian revolution.
The Syrian revolution was sparked in 2011 by the Assad regime’s brutal response to peaceful demonstrations. Women’s contributions to the revolution over the last decade – as activists, journalists, teachers, doctors, field nurses and even fighters – “did not come from nothing,” according to Yasmin Sharbaji, a human rights activist and coordinator of the Families for Freedom movement in Lebanon. Rather, it came after years of the Assad regime imposing “political tyranny” and “detaining educated women.”