Human Rights Watch Warns of Ongoing Suffering of Families of Thousands of Missing in Syria

ARK News.. Human Rights Watch has warned of the continued suffering of the wives and children of more than 100,000 missing persons in Syria, due to a legal and economic vacuum stemming from the outdated personal status law, which prevents access to essential official documents required for education and healthcare.

Hiba Zayadin, a senior researcher in the Middle East and North Africa division at Human Rights Watch, said: “With more than 100,000 missing in Syria, their wives face a legal and economic vacuum, while their children are deprived of the documents needed to access education and healthcare.”

Zayadin stressed in statements to the German press that this issue “is not secondary,” but must be at the core of any serious discussion on transitional justice and gender equality in post-war Syria.

According to estimates by the United Nations and Syrian human rights organizations, the number of missing persons in Syria ranges between 150,000 and 170,000, most of them men who were forcibly disappeared during the revolution years that began in 2011 and ended in January 2024.

Syria’s personal status law, issued in 1953, remains one of the most prominent challenges facing families of the missing, as it requires long waiting periods or approval from male relatives to issue a death certificate. This results in depriving wives of fundamental rights such as guardianship, inheritance, pensions, and the right to remarry.

The law also requires minor children to obtain approval from a “mandatory guardian”—usually from the father’s family—to issue any official document, a requirement that remains in place until they reach the age of eighteen.

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