The Syrian Network for Human Rights issued a report documenting property rights violations against women in Syria since 2011.
The report, released on Thursday, July 23, documented patterns of property seizure and their impact on women during the conflict and the transitional period.
It concluded that the former regime used property rights as a tool for punishment, political subjugation and demographic engineering.
The SNHR noted that the fall of the regime on December 8, 2024, did not automatically restore confiscated rights. Instead, it created new challenges related to complex and costly procedures and the absence of clear mechanisms for restitution and reparation.
Seizures Through Exceptional Courts
The report documented how the Assad regime used exceptional courts to order property seizures and confiscations, particularly the Counterterrorism Court established under Legislative Decree No. 63 of 2012 and based on Counterterrorism Law No. 19 of 2012, without respecting fair trial guarantees.
The regime also relied on expropriation legislation, including Law No. 10 of 2018 and Legislative Decree No. 66 of 2012. These measures imposed unrealistic deadlines for proving ownership and led to the administrative seizure of properties belonging to displaced people and refugees.
The report found that women who recovered their properties after the regime’s fall often discovered that they had been destroyed or required costly repairs beyond their financial means.
Documented Patterns of Violations
The report classified the violations into three main, overlapping categories: direct property rights violations, arbitrary legal or administrative measures, and discriminatory social and economic factors.
Documented patterns included the loss of property rights because of forced displacement, widespread or deliberate bombing and destruction of property, the use of civilian property for military purposes, precautionary and enforcement seizures, and arbitrary confiscation.
The report also identified confiscations linked to detention and the actual or presumed political affiliation of family members, expropriation through exceptional legislation and coercive urban planning, the loss of legal documents, and the forgery and deliberate manipulation of property records.
It highlighted restrictions on access to justice and effective remedies, the loss of inheritance rights amid family disputes, and financial extortion in exchange for preserving, transferring or otherwise disposing of property.
These patterns interacted with a preexisting discriminatory system, as property was frequently registered in the names of husbands, fathers or other male relatives who were detained, forcibly disappeared, killed or displaced.
The SNHR said discriminatory property registration practices placed women in a weaker legal position when the registered owner was absent.
It added that the widespread registration of property in men’s names corresponded with a structurally low proportion of women formally registered as property owners before the conflict. Social customs, economic dependence and limited legal awareness contributed to this disparity, further increasing women’s vulnerability to property loss.
Recommendations
The Syrian Network for Human Rights called on the Syrian authorities to establish an independent national body for property restitution and the resolution of real estate disputes. It said the body should have judicial and administrative powers and use alternative methods of proving ownership, including affidavits, witness testimony, satellite imagery, and tax and municipal records.
The SNHR also called on the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, UN treaty bodies and the Independent International Commission of Inquiry on Syria to include violations of women’s property rights in their reports.
It urged UN agencies, including the UN Refugee Agency, the United Nations Development Programme and UN Women, to provide technical assistance to the Syrian authorities and fund free legal aid programs for affected women.
The report called on countries exercising universal jurisdiction to include property rights violations, including systematic confiscation, deliberate destruction and the organized forgery of property records, in open criminal cases as elements of war crimes and crimes against humanity.
It also stressed that donor countries should allocate direct funding to establish a property restitution body and link reconstruction assistance to effective guarantees that housing, land and property rights will be respected.
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