Statement on the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women

2020-11-25
Today, 25 November, marks the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women in the World. On this day, in 1999, the United Nations decided to preserve the memory of three sisters, Patricia, Maria and Antonia Mirabal, who were subjected to a brutal assassination on November 25, 1960 in the Dominican Republic, by order of its governor, Rafael Trujillo.

This year, the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women coincided with the outbreak of Coronavirus pandemic in the world, including the NES areas, and the general closure and curfews it caused, which led to the transformation of the home into a place for practicing violence against women. In this context, the Secretary-General of the United Nations, Antonio Guterres, had previously called, during a press release, to include the issue of domestic violence against women in the national plan to combat Coronavirus pandemic outbreak, due to the dreadful growth of domestic violence in light of the economic and social crisis that resulted from the spread of the emerging virus.

The "Unite" campaign launched by the United Nations Secretary-General to end violence against women, is a multi-year campaign aimed at eliminating violence against women and females, and focuses on strengthening the call for global action to bridge funding gaps and ensure basic services for survivors of violence during Coronavirus pandemic. As well as, on prevention and data gathering that would help improve services aimed at protecting women.

Violence against women is one of the most widespread and constant violations of human rights, since the beginning of the war in Syria at the hands of the various armed organizations in the Syrian opposition and regime, and the world is still unable to achieve justice for Syrian women who have been subjected to the most heinous types of physical, psychological and sexual violations.

Till this day, Syria is still conservative with several articles of the 1979 CEDAW agreement, which adopts combating discrimination against women in all its forms. Although it signed and ratified the convention through Legislative Decree No. (330) in 2002, yet, articles related to the rights and duties of marriage and granting citizenship for a foreign man if he marries a Syrian woman are problematic. This is attributed to the fact that Islamic doctrine is a legislative source in the Syrian constitution.

We, in ASO Center for Consultancy and Strategic Studies, while we condemn the violence against women in NES in particular and Syria in general, and especially domestic violence resulting from the curfew as part of the preventive measures to limit the spread of the Coronavirus pandemic, we find it of great importance for Syrian women to have considerable and full potential in the legal prosecution of violence perpetrators against them. Whether these preparators were military parties that participate in the ongoing war in Syria, and the prosecution of the perpetrators from the community, whether relatives, family, spouse or any other member of the society.