More than 100,000 women across Syria continue to face severe legal and practical hardships because their husbands disappeared during the decade-long conflict. United Nations and local human rights groups estimate 150,000–170,000 people remain missing since the 2011 uprising became a civil war. During the fighting, hundreds of thousands were detained, an estimated 600,000 were killed and many were buried in unmarked graves. The war formally ended in December 2024 after a rebel coalition led by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham ousted Bashar al-Assad, but disappearance-related problems persist.
Women who have lived for years without news of their spouses say the lack of workable legal remedies traps them and their children in limbo. Nora, 33, from Al-Dana near Aleppo, said her husband vanished 14 years ago. Although she has accepted that he will not return, she cannot remarry, claim inheritance or a pension, or obtain full legal custody of her son because his paternal family blocks efforts to declare him dead. ‘‘My son needs their approval for official papers until he turns 18,’’ she said, adding that her signature is routinely rejected by authorities.
Many of these obstacles flow from Syria’s Personal Status Law of 1953. Under that law a court may declare a missing person dead only when the person would have reached age 80, or under a legal presumption of death that applies four years after disappearance if it occurred in armed conflict or similar circumstances. The law also gives male relatives decisive authority over several family matters, leaving wives of the disappeared in a legal and economic void and often denying their children the documentation required for schooling, health care and state services.
‘‘With more than 100,000 people missing in Syria, their wives are left in a legal and economic void, and their children are denied documentation,’’ said Hiba Zayadin, senior researcher for the Middle East and North Africa at Human Rights Watch. Zayadin and other campaigners say addressing these women’s needs should be central to transitional justice and gender-equality reforms.
The transitional government has set up a National Authority for Missing Persons, but broader family-law reform has stalled. Experts say a single, uniform family law for all of Syria is unlikely given the country’s religious and ethnic diversity. Lena‑Maria Möller, a research assistant professor at Qatar University College of Law, has proposed a more realistic approach: a plural family-law landscape that allows communities some autonomy while preserving a common legal framework to protect rights and integrate different social groups. That model, she argues, would fit the transitional government’s stated goal of respecting minorities while knitting the country back together.
Recent policy changes have, however, tightened mothers’ legal standing. In December 2025 the Ministry of Justice issued Circular No. 17, narrowing the discretion judges previously had to grant guardianship to mothers when fathers were absent. The amendment limits legal guardianship of minors to a specified list of male relatives, effectively sidelining mothers and deepening the vulnerabilities of families when fathers are missing or presumed dead. Syrian researcher Lina Ghotouk described the move as a step toward wider discrimination against mothers and a worsening of the problem for wives of the disappeared.
The restriction sparked grassroots mobilization. Aleppo activist Yafa Nawaf launched a social media campaign called ‘‘My Children, My Right.’’ Nawaf, 39, said thousands of women joined after sharing stories of being unable to obtain identification and services for their children without a ‘‘compulsory guardian.’’ She is calling on the new People’s Assembly, under the pending constitution, to overhaul the Personal Status Law to protect mothers’ custody and guardianship rights. ‘‘It is a battle for survival,’’ Nawaf said, arguing that reforms are essential to secure alimony, services and children’s legal status.
Campaigners acknowledge the risk of social and political backlash. Kristian Brakel, director of the Heinrich Böll Foundation’s Beirut office, pointed out that despite women bearing heavy burdens during the war and some post-conflict gains, meaningful legal change has been limited. He warned that the problem is not only legal text but entrenched mindsets within male-dominated state institutions.
Advocates are pressing for specific legal amendments: allow spouses of the missing to obtain death certificates or other status changes without obstruction from the absent husband’s family; clarify guardianship and custody rules to prioritize mothers’ and children’s rights; and guarantee access to inheritance, pensions and vital documents. They say these steps are necessary elements of transitional justice and crucial to preventing a long-term underclass of undocumented children and economically precarious women.
For the families involved, the issues are practical and urgent. Campaigners emphasize immediate priorities—securing documents, restoring access to services, and protecting children’s futures—alongside longer-term law reform. Until laws and practices are revised to center the needs of wives and children of the missing, thousands of Syrian families will remain socially vulnerable, legally constrained and economically insecure.