For more than 100,000 women in Syria, the end of the fighting has not meant the end of legal and practical hardships caused by missing husbands. United Nations and local human rights groups estimate between 150,000 and 170,000 people remain missing since the 2011 uprising escalated into civil war. During the conflict, as many as 1–2 million people were detained, roughly 600,000 were killed and many were buried in unmarked graves. The war itself ended in December 2024 when a coalition of rebel groups led by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) removed Bashar al-Assad from power.
“I am neither a wife nor a widow,” said 33-year-old Nora from Al-Dana, near Aleppo, who asked that her surname not be used. Her husband disappeared 14 years ago; she has lost hope he will return but cannot move on legally. When she tried to obtain a death certificate, her husband’s family intervened in court. Without their consent she cannot remarry, inherit property, claim a pension or have full custody of her son. “My son has to seek their approval for any official document until he turns 18,” she said, adding that her signature is not accepted.
Much of this stems from Syria’s 1953 Personal Status Law. It sets out that a missing person may be declared dead by a court when the person would have reached age 80, or under a legal presumption of death four years after a disappearance if it resulted from armed conflict or similar circumstances. The law also grants male relatives decisive authority over key family decisions, leaving wives of the disappeared in a legal and economic void and denying their children documentation needed to access education and health care.
“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. She argues that addressing the situation of these women must be central to transitional justice and gender equality efforts.
Syria’s transitional government has created a National Authority for Missing Persons, but broader family-law reforms have been delayed. Experts say a single, unified family law across 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 argued a more realistic path is a diverse family law landscape that grants communities some autonomy while maintaining a cohesive legal framework—an approach she says would align with the transitional government’s stated aims to respect minorities and integrate social factions.
Meanwhile, recent policy changes have tightened mothers’ legal standing. Since December 2025, the Ministry of Justice issued Circular No. 17, restricting the flexibility judges previously had to grant guardianship to mothers when fathers are absent. The amendment narrows legal guardianship of minors to an enumerated list of male relatives, effectively marginalizing mothers. Lina Ghotouk, a Syrian researcher and human rights specialist, said the move signals a shift toward greater discrimination against mothers and worsens the predicament of wives of the disappeared.
The change prompted Aleppo activist Yafa Nawaf to launch the “My Children, My Right” initiative on social media. Nawaf, 39, said thousands of women joined in response to shared struggles obtaining basic identification documents for their children except through a “compulsory guardian.” She called for the People’s Assembly, as part of the new constitution, to radically amend the Personal Status Law on custody and guardianship. “It is a battle for survival,” Nawaf said, arguing reforms are essential for alimony, access to services and children’s documentation.
Activists recognize they risk social backlash. Kristian Brakel, director of the Heinrich Böll Foundation’s Beirut office, noted that despite women’s heavy burdens during the war and some advances, there have been few substantive changes in legal rights. He said the problem extends beyond laws to prevailing mindsets in male-dominated government agencies.
Campaigners are pushing for legal amendments that would allow spouses of the disappeared to secure death certificates or other legal status changes without obstruction by the absent husband’s family, clarify guardianship and custody rules to prioritize mothers and children’s rights, and ensure access to inheritance, pensions and documentation. They argue such steps are integral to meaningful transitional justice and to preventing a long-term underclass of stateless or undocumented children and economically precarious women.
For many affected women, the issue is immediate and practical: securing documents, accessing services, and protecting their children’s futures. Until legal reforms are enacted and implemented in a way that centers the needs of wives and children of the missing, thousands of families will remain in limbo—socially vulnerable, legally constrained and economically insecure.