Why women in Syria are disappearing

On a Thursday in February, Sumaya*, a 38-year-old mother of three from the outskirts of Hama, travelled to a state clinic to receive her weekly treatment for the infectious disease leishmaniasis. As usual, she took the bus to the clinic at 8 a.m. and waited there for her injection. 

Since then, there has been no sign of her. 

"The staff told us that she left after her treatment, but no one has seen her since", her brother told Qantara. Her family reported the incident to the police on the same day, but were told to wait until 24 hours after her disappearance before action could be taken. Her brother immediately started searching for Sumaya through the streets, to no avail. 

Sumaya's case was not the first of its kind. Rasha al-Ali, a professor at Homs University of Education, disappeared in January, less than two months after the fall of Bashar al-Assad. 

Since then, in the coastal region and in the provinces of Homs and Hama, kidnappings are on the rise. The number of abductees is estimated at dozens, though exact figures are not available, as the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) tells Qantara. 

Social stigma

Two days after her disappearance, Sumaya's family received a WhatsApp message from a foreign number. A ransom of 10,000 US dollars was demanded. Further demands for money followed. 

Five days later, a message arrived from a number in another Arab country—this time a voice message in Sumaya's voice. Sumaya told her family that she had been unconscious for four days and was well again now. She had been married to a man about whom she knew nothing.

In the message, a copy of which was received by Qantara, Sumaya asks her children to focus on their education. She tells them that she will not be returning home. "We are all shocked", says her brother, "she seemed to be under pressure." When the family called the Arabic number back, a man answered in the dialect of the country from which the number originated. 

"I think the numbers are fake and the kidnappers are inside Syria," says Sumaya's brother. "We are sure that she has been kidnapped, but there is nothing we can do. Every work could cost her life."

Many families of abductees share the same fear. Social media is full of pleas to help locate young women, many of whom were kidnapped in broad daylight near their homes or workplaces. Other families of victims remain stubbornly silent, for fear of social stigmatisation or of endangering themselves. This often prevents any serious search for their missing daughters. 

In some cases, missing women have returned home but were allegedly pressured by security forces or media to deny that they had been abducted. "My cousin came back after ten days," the relative of one survivor told Qantara. "But the authorities demanded that she record a video and deny the abduction. Fearing a scandal, she agreed."

This did not prevent the family from being insulted and abused on social media. Many alleged that the abducted woman had been travelling with a man and that the family fabricated the story to discredit Syria's new rulers. 

Many returnees reported in videos that they had simply travelled to another province, voluntarily, to find work or to meet friends. One minor claimed that she had travelled to another province to "see her family from her previous life". This sparked a wave of ridicule aimed at Syrian Alawites, who believe in the reincarnation of souls. 

In another video, a young woman can be seen shortly after her return, whispering to her brothers in tears: "They raped me, Hassan." Later, she was detained for hours and made to record a new video in which she denied everything and claimed to have been in Aleppo visiting a friend. 

In other cases, women were found hundreds of kilometres away from where they disappeared. There were no official statements or investigations. At the time of publication of this article, the Syrian authorities had not responded to an enquiry concerning these cases. 

Fear a constant companion

The reasons behind the kidnappings vary, SOHR Director Rami Abdul Rahman explains to Qantara. Some kidnappings are for ransom, some to settle old scores, to enforce conditions on certain parties or to exact revenge. Men have also been kidnapped, says Abdul Rahman. 

But cases of abducted women, especially Alawite women, have increased, particularly since the massacres in the Syrian coastal region in March. They mostly appear to be linked to forced marriages, attempts to put pressure on families or the settling of old scores. 

For many women in the villages and towns on the Syrian coast and in the provinces of Hama and Homs, fear has become a constant companion. "We no longer go out at night," says Maryam, an Alawite woman from the coastal town of Jableh. "Some wear a veil to protect themselves from kidnappings," she says. "We know that kidnappings can affect all denominations. But as Alawites, we are under additional threat. Fear has us all in its grip, women and men alike."

"The distance between my home and the school where I work is a ten-minute walk," says Heba, a teacher from a majority Alawite neighbourhood of Homs. "Although I am almost 35 years old, I have to let my family know as soon as I arrive at school."

If a car with an unclear licence plate or darkened windows drives past on her way to work, she imagines all kinds of kidnapping scenarios. "The militias have recently set up roadblocks in our neighbourhood. They only check women's IDs," Heba continues. "All this prevents us from leaving the house unless it is absolutely necessary."

"Cultural genocide"

What women experience in Homs, Hama and along the coast cannot be considered seperately from other forms of violence. The goal of the violence, says Syrian researcher Sami Kayal, is to undermine social cohesion.  

Massacres, described as "mass killings" by Amnesty International, took place in the coastal region on 7 and 8 March 2025. Amnesty blamed "militias close to the new Syrian government". President Ahmed al-Sharaa set up a commission of enquiry to hold those responsible to account, but did not admit guilt himself. 

"Abductions, forced marriages and changes of religion, as well as the compulsion to deny what has happened, are not just criminal acts, but systematic instruments for destroying the social structure of the Alawite community," says Kayal. 

Violence against women is a means of humiliation that can also become an instrument of "cultural genocide", according to Kayal. In a patriarchal structure, he says, women are not regarded as independent individuals; rather, the forced marriage of abducted women is a means of negating their social affiliation and depriving them of their identity and status. 

Kayal holds the transitional government directly responsible: "It is the state that is committing these crimes," he says. Rhetorically, the new government uses the argument of the central state and the monopoly on the use of force to delegitimise dissenters. "However, this rhetoric does not do justice to a state but corresponds to the logic of a coalition of armed groups."

The militias in Syria are, according to Kayal, "using their power to expel women from the public sphere and destroy their existence as active subjects". For Kayal, the government's supporters are partly to blame due to their silence and duplicity: "Although many know that what is being done to the Alawites is a crime, they repeat the government’s narrative." This gives them a sense of superiority. 

*Name changed at the request of the interviewee. 

This text is an edited translation of the Arabic original.