The prospect of returning to Syria, now discussed more openly among some Syrian refugees in Germany after the regime’s fall, is not always framed as a rational collective decision. Instead, it often surfaces as a test of loyalty—or as an internal exercise of power, where the male figure seeks to reassert his dominance within the family. Strikingly, in some households that once fled state oppression, the idea of return is not seen merely as a sovereign decision or a step toward maturity—but as a tool to reimpose control over women.
In a quiet refugee neighborhood in Germany, in an apartment much like hundreds of others, a woman was murdered. It wasn’t the first such crime, and it won’t be the last. But its details render silence a parallel crime. A Syrian man killed his wife after a dispute over returning to Syria. There was no knife, only a decision—spoken by her and rejected by him. The cost was her life.
The murder occurred on June 18 in the city of Hagen (North Rhine-Westphalia). The woman, according to those close to her, had recently expressed a desire to remain in Germany and refused to return to Syria. This disagreement sparked a conflict over their children’s future. It wasn’t the first time they argued. But it was the last.
Rather than focusing on the brutality of the act or the trauma that “return” may evoke for a woman still haunted by war and exile, discourse quickly turned to the woman’s behavior. People questioned not the killer’s motives, but the victim’s choices: Why did she refuse? What was she hiding? Had she “changed” after living in Germany? Was she planning to leave him? Did she dare say no?
A Reassertion of Control
The question of return is, for many families, laden with emotion—swelled by nostalgia, exhaustion, or daily pressures. But for many women, return is not tinged with longing—it is steeped in fear. Fear of being thrust back into a place where they are unsafe, or into a society that shrinks around them after years of relative freedom.
The woman who was killed was not a political or social activist. According to her neighbors, she was a mother and homemaker, still learning the language, not yet employed. All she wanted was to stay. To choose her fate. That alone proved unforgivable.
Exile as Truce, Not Salvation
This crime happened in Germany—a country that portrays itself as a sanctuary for survivors of war, racism, and persecution. But even here, it cannot protect against the violence we carry within us. Unlike bombs, such violence does not need a visa. It resides in language, in upbringing, in the roles assigned inside the home.
The murderer was not a monster in isolation. He was the embodiment of an entire culture that sees a woman as a subordinate. In the moment of conflict, he couldn’t bear her defiance. Couldn’t accept her voice. So he silenced it.
But what came after the murder was even more brutal.
The Second Killing
When news of the crime spread across Syrian social media platforms, it was not met with outrage or grief—but with ridicule, suspicion, and hollow bravado. “She must have been cheating,” some wrote. “See what asylum does to our women?” “If she wanted freedom, she should have accepted the consequences.”
The act of murder was met not with condemnation, but with an indictment of the victim. In the culture we carry, when a woman is killed, the first question is: What did she do to deserve it? When she says “no,” that refusal is twisted into a curse, a betrayal, or proof of moral collapse. And in every case, she is the one to blame.
It’s easy to silence a woman with a knife. Easier still to erase her voice with a flood of slander. No one asked about her children. Who will one day need to understand that their mother was not killed because she erred, but because she dared to refuse? How will they grow up in a society that sees a woman’s “no” as a threat to be eradicated?
In such crimes, the tragedy is not confined to the victim—it consumes an entire generation, raised on fear, obedience, and the burial of pain.
Return as Threat, Not Choice
Why do women refuse to return to Syria? The answer is not always political or economic.
One friend spoke of the specific anxieties women carry. For many, return means surrendering freedoms never granted to them back home. It is the return to a past not yet healed—a return to the cage.
Some women resist return because exile offered a taste of independence: education, work, a voice within the family. Going back would mean forfeiting it all.
Others fear the scrutiny and social suffocation they escaped: extended family interference, societal policing of dress, mobility, and private choices. Some removed their hijabs, some got tattoos, some chose to live alone. In parts of Syria, even changing the style of a headscarf invites ostracism.
Some women carry darker wounds. One was raped by a relative. Another, a survivor of sexual assault, collapsed upon retelling her story. She cannot tell her children what happened, nor why she fears going back. For women like her, return is not an option—it’s a reentry into the scene of the crime.
Then there are the former detainees of the Assad regime. Many fear the stigma that haunts female prisoners in Syrian society—branded as having “dishonored” their families, regardless of their innocence. Some were murdered by their own relatives the moment they were released.
Mothers, too, worry about their children. Those born or raised in Europe may not speak Arabic fluently. The mother is then blamed for “failing” her child. Sectarianism adds another layer: a Druze woman who married a Sunni or Christian man may not be safe in her hometown. She won’t gamble with her children’s safety.
While returning men are often celebrated as heroes, women are placed under a microscope. Their pasts are combed through. Their loyalty questioned. In exile, a woman’s desire to stay becomes an accusation. Yet even staying is no guarantee of safety.
Exile is not salvation. No one emerges untouched from a culture that still views women as property—whether they stay or return.
This Is Not a “Crime of Honour”
It is a crime of murder—deliberate, not tragic.
The woman killed in Hagen was not the first. She won’t be the last. On April 19, in the nearby city of Bielefeld, another Syrian woman was stabbed to death by her husband—in front of their children. She was 43. He was 44. Neighbors said they, too, had argued over returning to Syria.
The parallels are chilling: not just in the crimes, but in the reactions. The same script was repeated—victim-blaming, justifications, silence.
In both cases, the children were taken into state care. And in both cases, the same question lingers in the void:
How many women must die before we stop calling these isolated incidents?
How many “no”s must be punished before we admit that murder has become a method of correction?
The Illusion of Safety
These are not crimes born of place, but of structures we carry with us. We comfort ourselves with the illusion that Europe offers a clean slate. But exile doesn’t erase—only rearranges.
In many homes, patriarchal norms adapt to the new environment. They become more brittle, more suspicious of “freedom,” more prone to explode at the first sign of defiance.
Women often find themselves isolated—trapped between a new society they cannot fully access, and an old one that won’t release them. No family nearby. No voice heard. No partner who listens. Some choose silence. Some endure. Some resist—like the woman who was killed. But when the wall collapses, it is not violence that dies. It is the woman.
Return as Coercion
In this isolating reality, the decision to return to Syria looms not as a right, but as a sentence—especially for women.
Even after the regime’s collapse, a stable environment guaranteeing safety and justice remains absent. Many returnees are met with fragile realities and deeply conservative expectations—particularly for women who assert their independence.
When a man decides to return, his choice is respected. But when his wife refuses, her motives are doubted. His nostalgia is seen as noble. Her fear, as betrayal.
Some women who returned under pressure found themselves in precarious situations, without support, and with no right to reverse course. Yet these consequences are rarely accounted for. What matters most is the image of the “obedient woman”—even when the stakes are life or death.
Who Protects Women? Who Stops the Killer?
When a woman is murdered in exile, it is not enough to call it a crime. We must ask:
What made it possible?
Who normalized it?
Who excused it?
Who remained silent?
The two Syrian women killed for refusing to return were not victims of “individual incidents.” They were casualties of a culture that sees a woman’s body as a battleground and her voice as a threat.
They were failed by exile, disowned by society, and pursued by a homeland that wouldn’t let them go—even from afar.
Perhaps all they wanted was to remain where they felt safe, where they had begun to rebuild. But safety means little when it’s wrapped in so much cruelty.
Women are not always killed by knives. Sometimes they are killed by a word, a judgment, a sneer, or a silence. And the killer is not always one man—but an entire society that chooses not to see.
It is not enough to grieve. It is not enough to light a candle in the dark.
We must begin dismantling that darkness—word by word, home by home, law by law.
We must confront the roots of violence—not coexist with them.
We must expose the patriarchy that follows women into exile, long after the tyrant has fallen in the homeland but not in the home.
We must redefine manhood beyond dominance, and identity beyond ownership.
We need societies that teach their sons that a woman is neither property, nor servant, nor an extension of their will.
We need laws that protect—not customs that bind.
We need voices unafraid to call things by their names:
This is not a “crime of honour.”
This is murder.
This is not a “tragic ending.”
This is a premeditated end to a beginning that only asked for survival.
This article was translated and edited by The Syrian Observer. The Syrian Observer has not verified the content of this story. Responsibility for the information and views set out in this article lies entirely with the author.
