The wife of a martyr took a taxi to transfer her from her workplace to her home in the Mazzeh Jabal neighborhood in the capital, Damascus. However, she discovered that the taxi driver was repeatedly waiting for her at the end of her shift to tell her that he was going to the same place he had brought her from last time.
The 33-year-old Lina Mahla refrained from getting in his car after noticing that he was abnormally acting, especially since he refused to take the fare from her.
“Once he knocked on the door, I opened it, I saw him standing and he began touching his penis, and said, did not you understand!? I like you and want you,” Mahla said.
She replied very angrily: “You think you are a man, get out of my face, or I will scream and expose you among the people.”
As for the 30-year-old Ranim Ahmed, whose husband was killed at the beginning of the Syrian crisis in 2011, at that time she was only 20 years old, she said that one day the phone rang, and the speaker was one of the officers she met while she was conducting a compensation transaction for her husband’s death, offering her to marry in return she had to give him ownership of half of the house she had bought with the compensation money that she had received after her husband’s death.
Facing difficulties alone
Estimates of employees in “martyrs’ offices” in more than one governorate, who requested anonymity, indicate that more than 90% of widows were under the age of forty when their husbands were killed, and more than half of them were in their twenties.
In this investigation, we spoke to nine widows who lost their husbands in the ranks of government forces. Six of them accepted to speak on condition of anonymity, while three of them refused to speak because they were convinced that nothing would change, and that they did not want to recover painful memories.
During the interviews, it was found that the six women were subjected to harassment or sexual exploitation attempts, and most of them went through stressful details and problems related to inheritance with the husband’s family.
Sexual harassment is one of the most prominent problems faced by the widows of the army’s dead, most of whom are also, according to percentages obtained by North Press from official sources, and one of them expressed the phenomenon: “We are as piece of meat that dogs are gasping for.”
While another sarcastically asked, “We do not know what the word martyr’s wife does, and why does it stir instincts?”
Amal Badr, mother of two young men, her husband was killed in the battles with the armed opposition in Daraa in 2012, when she was 30 years old, to start a bitter stage of struggle with life alone, and her burden was doubled to be both a mother and a father.
The woman was forced to enroll her two sons in the sons of the martyrs’ boarding school, because she could not support them.
Hardly Amal recounts the details of her story until she returns to the most painful topic; “all the martyrs’ wives were sexually harassed.”
“As if the term MARTYR’S WIFE stirs up the lusts of men, so when you make any request or transaction, or any contact with men, you will be subjected to one of the types of harassment, and you will find someone who will bargain with her over her body,” she said.
Like other wives, Rita Asa’ad’s memory retains many stories of sexual harassment, but “If the martyr’s wife is not strong, she will be eaten by wolves and monsters,” she says.
While Samaher Ali talked about the last story that happened to her when she was in the school she teaches in Damascus, when she entered her office and found a colleague sitting in her place, and he started talking to her with all rudeness in a way that included sexual gestures in front of the attendees.
Conflicts over inheritance
There are many problems that these women suffer from, including the struggle over inheritance and financial compensation with the husband’s family, in addition to the stressful economic pressures that they found themselves in a unique and lonely moment to face.
Among those was Amal Badr, who did not enjoy a good relationship with her husband’s family residing in the countryside of Hama, because most of those who were killed from the government army came from poor families, and the sums that the government allocates to their families, despite their scarcity, become a major cause of disputes between the heirs of his wife and family.
The woman says that her husband’s family took even the funeral expenses from her, adding to that her husband’s brothers tried to take his car, but the laws refrained them.
In a similar story, Rama was twenty years old when she married a young man who had just graduated from the Military College, but they did not spend more than a year together, as he returned from a battle in Hama in a coffin.
At that time she was pregnant for a few months, but she lost the baby due to her miserable psychological state.
Her husband’s family did not want her to stay with them, so the family moved to the house in which Rama lives in and built with her husband, and asked her to leave to her family’s house, as the marriage only lasted a year and the pregnancy aborted, and their son passed away, so there is no place for her among them.
Like others, the 35-year-old Rita Asa’ad, who lost her husband in a battle in Homs, leaving three daughters behind, had many problems with her husband’s family.
She wants her daughters’ share of the land that her husband inherited from his family, who strongly reject this, and they accuse her of intending to sell the land that includes the family cemetery.
Benefits of personal relationships
Amal Bader believes that everyone invests in the martyrs and their families, and said that the army’s checkpoints, especially those belonging to the Fourth Division led by Maher al-Assad, the brother of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, confiscate many goods and impose fines, under the pretext of granting them to the families of the martyrs, but the families got nothing.
“Sometimes some of the martyrs’ wives get a house as a grant, according to her personal relations, even the honoring that was common, has been subjected to personal relations, as you may find a wife who is honored on every occasion, while there are those who did not receive honoring,” Badr added.
The same applies to food baskets whose numbers have greatly decreased, two years ago most families were given a monthly basket, but now, they may not get a basket every four months, and there are families who did not get a basket for more than two years, while others did not get anything at all.
Badr confirms that there has been a significant decline in all services, as the reality of the Sons of Martyrs Schools has declined a lot during the past two years.
According to employees of the Martyrs’ Offices, most of the requests made by widows are related to securing a home, especially after compensation is not even enough to rent a house, and there are also many requests related to obtaining kiosks as a source of income to maintain the daily needs of their families.
Well informed sources of the Martyrs’ Offices told North Press that the job application is one of the most frequent requests for the wives and families of the martyrs, especially that obtaining a government job is the ambition of every young man and woman, especially on the Syrian coast, due to the bad conditions, and there is no other job prospect.
The Law 7 of 2017 limited the annual work contract to the wife, or whoever of her children she chooses, and the decision gives the family of the martyr a second job opportunity when there is another martyr in the family.
Hala al-Ali, confirmed to North Press that she waited for a job opportunity in exchange for her brother’s martyrdom for more than 7 years, and when she got it, it was on conditions that were not suitable for her, because the opportunity to teach in English was outside her governorate.
Recently, with the large number of government soldiers killed, whose number reached 63,000 until March, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR), even this demand has become unfulfilled.
Although the official authorities are silent on the number of army casualties, statistics obtained by North Press from official sources, who spoke on condition of anonymity, indicate that the number of dead in a city like Homs reaches 12,000 soldiers and auxiliary forces, including civilians.
While the families of the dead from the auxiliary forces (unofficial groups fighting alongside the army), have not yet obtained their rights because their relatives are not yet classified among the lists of martyrs.
Cases and exchange of accusations
In an attempt to find out the number of cases related to the martyrs’ wives that review the courts, Abdullah al-Hussein (pseudonym), a judge in Damascus, said that the issue of money disbursement is one of the most important problems that the judiciary decides on widows’ cases.
When the grandfather is alive, he is considered a legal guardian, and sometimes he may give up the mother’s guardianship, and sometimes when the grandfather takes custody, after he receives the money, he does not spend it on the children.
In these cases, the wife files a complaint against the grandfather for not spending on the children, and then the solution is through filing a lawsuit and removing him from guardianship so that the wife becomes a guardian, and receives the dues of her children.
The judge said that there are no statistics for the number of lawsuits filed by the martyrs’ wives, because they are classified among the public lawsuits filed in court.
However, he stressed that 15 to 20% of the cases that reach the court with serious complaints turn out to be true.
Widows share problems which are centered on the relationship with the husband’s family, and inheritance problems, especially that the Personal Status Law does not grant the mother guardianship over her children, but grants it to the husband’s father if he is alive or to his brother, who are also receive a percentage of the compensation allocated to the dead man.
The problems become even greater when the property is not divided and is still in the name of the father-in-law, and then even the house in which they live can be lost by the wife if the father-in-law deci
There were many problems between the husband’s family and the families of the girls who were registered without marriage, and when the would-be husband was killed, they demanded all the dues unjustly, a female lawyer, who preferred not to be named, said.
Bayda’ Younes, an employee in a government institution from Salamiyah, in Hama countryside, said that they left everything to their brother’s wife, yet she remained in a state of estrangement with them and prevented her children from communicating with them.
The lawyer, Linda Hussein (a pseudonym) believes that the law gave the martyrs’ wives power and privileges they do not deserve.
“It would have been better if these grants and privileges had been obtained by the recruited husband when he was still alive, but this did not happen on the ground. Rather, the military lived in deprivation and scarcity, and when he was martyred, good deeds overflowed upon his wife such as employment, compensation and aid.”
Emotional needs and forced marriage
Hind Abdullah (pseudonym), a social psychologist, says that the lack of fulfillment of the emotional and physical needs of wives makes them in a state of permanent resentment, without awareness of the reasons behind their bad moods.
Living as a young divorced or widowed woman in Middle Eastern societies is very difficult, especially as they are seen by men as an easy prey, which makes them in a state of permanent alienation, especially from the close circle of the relatives.
Khadija Alyan, who discovered that her husband had an affair with the wife of a martyr, said that she hated all the women of the martyrs because of that competitor, who was her friend and neighbour.
There is almost no role for official or civil authorities in finding solutions to widows’ emotional and physical problems despite their huge numbers, with the exception of a proposal by the Family Affairs Authority years ago in conferences that focused on the idea of encouraging marriage to widows.
However, on the ground, whoever remarries loses the benefits and grants that she obtained even if her children remain with her, and this is what encouraged secret marriage contracts in some cases, in order for the martyr’s wife to ensure the continuation of her life with her children and to preserve the benefits she obtains, such as Honor Card, retaining the military home after the husband’s death, or preserving the opportunity to be fixed in the job, because she is required to bring a family statement.
Sawsan Zakzak, a researcher in women’s human rights issues, said that her research on violence against women in Syria proves that sometimes many widows are forced to marry the brother of the martyr, because some families believe that this marriage preserves the children.
But in most cases, marriage takes place without the woman’s consent, because she used to treat her husband’s brother as her brother, but under the pressure of customs and traditions, and not to be separated from her children, she was forced to accept him.
Zakzak said that the research it conducted in Masyaf area revealed the existence of major conflicts between the wives and families of the martyrs to obtain children and financial compensation.
There is nothing easier than fabricating the accusation that the wife is unfit, when they want to expel her, which was confirmed by a Mokhtar (mayor) in the region of a significant increase in the number of lawsuits between wives and the families of their ex-husbands, according to the researcher.
With the official absence of dealing with these problems, some Iranian parties have been active in filling the void, and one of the widows said that she received an offer in the early years of the war to secure a home for her and her children in the Sayida Zainab area and to marry her, in return for abiding by the conditions required of her, such as wearing the hijab, and indicated that the same offer was given to others.
The war that has crushed the country for more than ten years and imposed a bitter reality on hundreds of thousands of women and put them in front of either ways not good, does not seem to end soon in light of the killing that harvest the souls.