Scores of Women Denied Travelling and Joining their Families

Scores of Women Denied Travelling and Joining their Families

A month following the termination of the summer holidays, sores of women in numerous provinces across Syria remain prohibited from travelling to join their families in neighbouring countries and in the Arabian Gulf.


It is a habit of many Syrian families that live and work outside of the country to spend their summer vacation in Syria. They are not spared however from the intelligence apparatus who continue to approach, interrogate, and even arrest individuals, as well as prohibiting them from travelling.


The Syrian Human Rights Committee (SHRC) has been informed by closely related sources of the names of tens of women whom until know have been unable to return and join their families in neighbouring and Gulf countries for no apparent reason. It is clear however that a key factor in this issue is corruption: after a woman is called upon for interrogation and receives threats she is requested to pay a large sum of money in order to travel. The majority of them are unable to pay this sum.


Although SHRC reserves the names of the women for their own personal safety, it condemns the spread of corruption in Syria and the exploitation of authority to get benefit. SHRC calls upon the concerned Syrian authorities to stop corruption in the intelligence and the security apparatus and to hold them accountable, as well as allowing the prohibited women to travel and to put an end to unjustified travel prohibitions measurements


Syrian Human Rights Committee