In July, Amnesty International said it had received credible reports of abductions and kidnappings of at least 36 Alawite women and girls, aged between three and 40, and had documented eight cases in detail.
In “almost all” the cases it documented, families “received no meaningful updates and no credible sense of progress on investigations,” deputy regional director Kristine Beckerle told the BBC.
Yamen Hussein, a Syrian human rights activist and writer based in Germany who has followed the issue, said survivors’ accounts showed the kidnappings had an ideological basis “built on the notion of violating the defeated side”, and aiming to “spread fear among Alawite women”.
However, a “general climate of impunity” had also encouraged groups with no ideological motive to carry out kidnappings, he added.
According to the Syrian Feminist Lobby, a small number of Druze and Sunni women were reported kidnapped, but were released later. It says 16 women – all of them Alawite – are still missing.
For the families the BBC spoke to, fear persists – both of retribution for speaking out and of social stigma associated with sexual assault.
Leen lives in constant anxiety, fearing knocks at the door, her mother said. Nesma’s marriage has collapsed. “I would scream in my sleep,” says Ramia. She says she is seeing a therapist but still struggles to sleep and “can’t find comfort”.
Ali told the BBC he and Noor were too afraid to seek justice, while Somaya said her daughter had returned to school, but “nobody around me knows anything about what happened”.
“We should not deny what happened to us but also we should not expose ourselves to danger,” she said.