Women in Syria constitute 49.9% of the country's population and, despite many challenges, many women are active participants in social, economic and political factions of Syrian society. According to World Bank data from 2021, there are around 10.6 million women in Syria. However, Syrian women and girls still experience challenges, especially since the outbreak of the civil war in 2011. They suffer from discrimination, lack of access to suitable healthcare and challenges precipitated by wartime violence.
History Ancient Syria There is an agreement amongst scholars that the earlier, Mesopotamian era of women were afforded greater personal liberties prior to the rise of the Akkid Empire in the areas of northern Syria. It was in the years following this that the status of women evolved into a more subordinated class against their male counterparts.
Ottoman Empire During the Ottoman Empire, Syrian women's roles were confined privately, with limited access to education and life on the outside. However, in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, there was an increase of feminist voices in Syria. These voices played roles as part of social and political transformations across the empire. Women became influenced by intellectual movements and reform efforts. Most women started to participate more actively in public discourse. They used their writing and organizing skills and pushed towards issues on education and women's rights. Publications such as Al Fatat and women-led salons were important in creating early feminist ideas. Although they were limited because of traditional norms and patriarchal structures, this period laid the foundation for Syria's modern feminist movements, which continues to improve movements and confidence, following the fall of the Ottoman Empire.
Mandate for Syria and the Lebanon During the Mandate for Syria and the Lebanon (1923–1946), the Syrian-Lebanese Women's Union united one of the earliest women's movements in Middle East in both Lebanon and Syria. In 1928, Lebanese-Syrian feminist Nazira Zain al-Din, one of the first people to critically reinterpret the Quran from a feminist perspective, published a book condemning the practice of veiling or hijab, arguing that Islam requires women to be treated equally with men. In 1930, the First Eastern Women's Congress was hosted in Damascus by the Syrian-Lebanese Women's Union.
Baathist era In 1963, the Ba'ath Party took power in Syria, and pledged full equality between women and men as well as full workforce participation for women.
The year 2011 marked the beginning of the Syrian civil war, which saw many civilians fall victim to attacks targeting hospitals, schools, and infrastructure. Extremist rebel groups, such as Jabhat al-Nusra and ISIS, have enforced strict policies restricting the freedoms of women in territories they control.
Feminist and women's rights movements
Pre-Ba'athist regime The Syrian feminist movement essentially began towards the end of the 19th century, during the time period in which modern Lebanon and Syria were occupied by the Ottoman Empire. It was during the time of Arabic Nahda, or awakening, in which what some women began to pioneer movements in the interests of their rights and liberties. Women like Maryana Marrash in the 1870s called for the liberation of women in public forums like newspapers, as well as contributing to journals with her articles and poems.
In 1920, the feminist Mary Ajami presented a petition to the Syrian Congress of 1920 during the Faisal-Government, but the subject was postponed and forgotten after the fall of the Faisal regime.Meininghaus, E. (2016), Creating Consent in Ba‘thist Syria: Women and Welfare in a Totalitarian State. Storbritannien: Bloomsbury Publishing. p.57 When the petition of women's suffrage was discussed in the Syrian Congress in 1920, Shaykh Abd al-Qadir al-Kaylani stated that to given women the right to vote would be the same thing as abolish sex segregation and allow women to appear unveiled.Thompson, E. (2000). Colonial Citizens: Republican Rights, Paternal Privilege, and Gender in French Syria and Lebanon. USA: Columbia University Press. p.128
In 1936, the Arab Women's Union of Damascus presented a women's suffrage petition to President Hashim al-Atassi and to President Shukri al-Quwatli, as well as directly to the Parliament.Meininghaus, E. (2016). Creating Consent in Ba‘thist Syria: Women and Welfare in a Totalitarian State. Storbritannien: Bloomsbury Publishing. p.65 When the influential feminist Adila Bayhum gave her support to Husni al-Za'im, he promised her to introduce women's suffrage when he came to power in 1949, and the reform was finally introduced in 1953.Moubayed, S. M. (2006). Steel & Silk: Men and Women who Shaped Syria 1900-2000. USA: Cune. p. 430-432
Ba'athist regime
The movement continued into the years up to the Syrian coup d'état in 1963. The governments of Hafez al-Assad, Jadid and Bashar al-Assad sought to either ban or contain the feminist movements, which arguably slowed their progression.
In 1967, Syrian women formed a quasi-governmental organization called the General Union of Syrian Women (GUSW), a coalition of women's welfare societies, educational associations, and voluntary councils intended to achieve equal opportunity for women in Syria.
Civil war After the 2011 Syrian revolution evolved into the Syrian civil war, some Syrian women joined all-female brigade units in the Syrian Arab Army, the Democratic Union Party, and the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, taking on roles such as snipers, frontline units, or police. In North and East Syria, under the Democratic Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria (DAANES), the Women's Protection Units was created as an all-female, multi-ethnic (majority Kurd) military force. (archived author's version: )
Post-Assad On 22 November 2025, women in Suwayda announced the creation of a women's group, "Free Women of Bashan Movement". According to Hawar News Agency, the group was the first women's group created in Suwayda.
Legal rights and engagement While Syria has developed some fairly secular features during independence in the second half of the 20th century, personal status law is still based on Sharia and applied by Sharia Courts. Syria has a dual legal system which includes both secular and religious courts. Marriage contracts are between the groom and the bride's father, and Syrian law does not recognize the concept of marital rape.
When discussing the acquisition and signification of citizenship in Syria, the obtaining of Syrian citizenship did not automatically enable women to gain full access to every right, one of the most notable ones being within the realm of family law. Syrian family law thus has a large impact on the legal rights of women. Public law states that all Syrian citizens are equal. However, family law has judicial primacy in defining women's personal status. In certain cases, family law can invalidate constitutional law. Although there were efforts to secularize the legal system of most Arab states in the 1920s, family law is still heavily influenced by religion and has an impact on the private domain in cases such as marriage, divorce, and child custody.
In 2002, Syria signed the CEDAW but set reservations related to family law. One of the most impactful developments in personal and family law in regards to the inheritance of wealth and land as a Syrian woman manifested in the set of decrees and laws issued between 2012 and 2018: Decree Number 66. Decree Number 63. Decree Number 19. Law Number 10.
Many of these overlapped with the Assad regimes agenda to combat dissent against the regime, and to institutionalise conformity. They provided a legal cover for the exploitation of private citizen property, and made it incredibly difficult for widows, divorcées or wives and family members of the kidnapped to claim ownership over property and inheritance.Women's International League for Peace & Freedom. "The Human Rights of Women in Syria." Policy Paper. 2020. http://www.wilpf.org/
Engagement In 2017, women made up 30% of the judicial corps in Syria, which is an increase of almost double from before the revolution, in which only 15% of the judicial corps were women. Because of the civil war, and a subsequent loss of male figures to the conflict, some women stepped into positions of authority. As of February 2021, the third and most recent cohort studying at the Higher Institute of Judicial Studies was mostly women, with 28 out of 49 trainees.
Women's engagement in Syria's legal and political areas was significant during the civil war. In the context of the civil war and disrupted government, women held influential roles as judges and legal professionals in opposition-controlled areas. This challenges traditional gender roles in spaces that were historically dominated by men. The future of female legal professionals in post-Assad Syria (outside of DAANES) was uncertain , due to objections by Hay'at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) against women presiding over Sharia courts or leading legal initiatives.
Education Between 1970 and the late 1990s, the number of girls in the education system dramatically increased due to the Ba'ath Party's initiative to combat illiteracy. The change was evident in primary schools, high schools and universities. Nevertheless, there are still ninety five women to every one hundred men. The dropout rate for women is much higher than for men. Prior to the conflict, Syria's education system was far more developed. After reaching the fifth year of the conflict, an estimated 50% of all school-age children were no longer attending school.
According to data from the World Bank, 46.8% of girls and 39.8% of boys complete lower secondary school in the Syrian Arab Republic as of 2022. The gap in completion rate is larger than the gap of the Middle East and North Africa aggregate.
According to the Human Rights Watch, reports show at least 650 cases of educational facilities being attacked or exploited for military purposes.
In 2014, the literacy rate for women was 74.2 percent and 91 percent for men. The rate of females over 25 with secondary education was 29.0 percent.
Politics
In Syria, women were first allowed to vote and received universal suffrage in 1953. In the 1950s, Thuraya Al-Hafez ran for Parliament, but was not elected. By 1971, women held four out of the 173 seats.
Historically, there are cases of women contributing to societal and political change within Syria. During the Arab spring, for example, women protested for change and in spite of arrests continued to take action, despite being socially oppressed by their male counterparts. During the height of the conflict period, women's rights and liberties became increasingly difficult to protect, and it became a goal of peace negotiations to establish a legal framework that would contribute to the protection of the rights of women.
In October 2000, the passage of U.N. SCR 1325 was passed, and became a turning point for the issue of Women, Peace and Security. Adopted after the Security Council issued a presidential statement on International Women's Day in March, it was acknowledged that there was a strong relationship between gender equality and peace building enterprises. A 2002 report on Women, Peace and Security also recommended implementing greater measures in including women in the process of peace negotiations.
Women have not overtly engaged with direct governmental contact and influence, but instead interact more with the informal negotiation process through non-governmental organisations and intergovernmental institutions.