Today’s crimes against women are rarely committed by a lone perpetrator. More often than not, de facto authorities are complicit—not merely supportive, but actively engaged in reshaping the narrative. Through official government discourse, these crimes are denied, ignored, or distorted, and sometimes even justified in ways more grotesque than the acts themselves. This is accompanied by a media chorus that cheers and echoes, amplified by mouthpieces and parrots repeating a hollow refrain.
Violence against women, in its many forms, is rooted in deep structural discrimination. It is often accompanied by efforts from repressive authorities to strip women of their agency and power, pushing them toward the zone most comfortable for those in control: the zone of feminine non-agency—culturally, socially, and even biologically.
What appears on the surface as a condescending view of women is, in fact, a deliberate strategy to legitimize exclusion and reinforce hostility. Beneath it lies a complex of psychological pathologies: gynophobia, misogyny, femicide, and more. Over time, fear of women becomes instinctive.
Symbolic violence against women is multifaceted and deeply embedded: discriminatory violence, linguistic violence, historical-anthropological violence, epistemological violence, legal violence, and media violence—both in entertainment and news. Amid Syria’s broader societal collapse, political failure, and national fragmentation, we seem to have grown accustomed to watching a collective memory being distorted, and a forced silence deepening the catastrophe. Today, the compounded forms of violence against women manifest in their most brutal expressions—kidnapping, abduction, enforced disappearance, rape, torture, and murder. These are no longer isolated acts against individuals; they have become a gendered, security-driven, and societal policy—one of the most potent mechanisms of domination and repression deployed against women in public life. Their absence from public space is not incidental; it is a tool of terror targeting entire communities, destroying the lives of their women and shackling their ability to live safely, pursue education, work, or mobility. It alters how they dress, how they live, and even penetrates the private sphere—into the heart itself.
Stripping Victims of Their Status
When stories become undeniable, the machinery of justification begins. We recall the words of Interior Ministry spokesperson Anwar Baba at the National Reconciliation Conference: “There are social and economic reasons behind the disappearance of Alawite women.” This marks the start of a process that dehumanizes victims—through defamation, denial, and demonization. Public opinion is primed to accept a narrative that strips victims of their voice and rights, recasting them not as victims but as culprits, as if their disappearance were a personal choice or emotional impulse. And the scenario repeats—especially now that kidnapping and abduction are no longer exceptional events, but systematic practices.
Thus, the victim is robbed of her rights twice: first, through the forced disappearance of her body and the silencing of her family; second, through the erasure of her victimhood and the imposition of a humiliating narrative that blames her for her own disappearance. One Alawite girl, before leaving home for work each day, began sending a text from her phone that read: “I’m not running away with anyone. I love my family very much. There are no problems between us. I don’t want to learn sewing, makeup, or hairdressing. If I disappear, I’ve been kidnapped.” This is no longer an isolated act of self-protection—it has become a widespread precautionary measure among women in the coastal region, where the threat of abduction has become part of daily life.
The case of Mai Salloum, which gained widespread attention, is among the most brazen. After disappearing, she briefly appeared at a police station in Latakia, only to vanish again. She later reappeared in a video, veiled, claiming she was safe and staying with a friend in Aleppo, denying she had been kidnapped. Her family rejected this account, describing her as disoriented and unable to recognize her husband or brother. A security officer told her brother: “Your daughter is not a minor. If she wants to go with someone she loves, that’s her business.” Once again, the morality of Alawite women is cast into doubt, and a case of abduction is reframed as a romantic escape. No one is pursued. No one is charged.
These denial videos are part of a broader propaganda apparatus and mechanisms of domination. Victims are coerced into playing the role of the runaway, forced to tarnish their own reputations, sever ties with their families and communities, and adopt a narrative crafted by their captors. This marks a new phase of violence—one that goes beyond the body to rewrite the victim’s story in the language of the perpetrator.
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.
