Syrian Center for Legal Studies and Research

The purpose of this report is not to prove that the regime has been using all forms of systematic violence against women boundlessly, including sexual violence since 2011: many reports have been issued in the last eight years (for instance by the Human Rights Council2, or Impartial international commission of inquiry3), and the reports of Syrian4 and international human rights organizations5 have demonstrated this. We rather intend here to reveal that detaining women and practicing violence against them has been a long-standing practice for the Syrian dictatorship. Since the 1980s, the Assad regime has followed brutal methods to break any opposition, discipline the Syrian society, and repress it politically.

The purpose of this report is not to prove that the regime has been using all forms of systematic violence against women boundlessly, including sexual violence since 2011: many reports have been issued in the last eight years (for instance by the Human Rights Council2, or Impartial international commission of inquiry3), and the reports of Syrian4 and international human rights organizations5 have demonstrated this. We rather intend here to reveal that detaining women and practicing violence against them has been a long-standing practice for the Syrian dictatorship. Since the 1980s, the Assad regime has followed brutal methods to break any opposition, discipline the Syrian society, and repress it politically.